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THE   PERMANENT   VALUE 

OF  THE 

BOOK   OF   GENESIS 


4 
THE  BISHOP  PADDOCK  LECTURES,  1894 

THE    PERMANENT   VALUE 

OF  THE 

BOOK  OF  GENESIS 

AS  AN  INTEGRAL   PART  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN   REVELATION 
Being  the  Paddock  Lectures  for  J  894 


y    BY 

C.   W.   E.    BODY,   M.A.,  D.C.L. 

PROFESSOR  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE  AND  INTERPRETATION  IN  THE  GENERAL  THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY,  NEW  YORK,  SOMETIME   PROVOST  OF  TRINITY  COLLEGE,  TOROWTO, 
AND  FELLOW  OF  ST.  JOHN'S   COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE 


NEW     YORK 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,   AND   CO. 

AND  LONDON 
1894 


Copyright,  1894, 
Bt  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 


THE  OAXTON  PRESS 
NEW  YORK 


TO  THE 

RIGHT  REVEREND   THE   BISHOPS  OF   CONNECTICUT, 
LONG  ISLAND  AND  MASSACHUSETTS 

AND    THE 

VERY  REV.  THE  DEAN  OF  THE  GENERAL  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

BY  WHOSE  APPOINTMENT  THESE  LECTURES 

WERE  DELIVERED 

THIS  FRUIT  OF  THEIR  INVITATION  IS  DEDICATED 

WITH   SINCERE   RESPECT 


THE  BISHOP   PADDOCK  LECTURES. 


In  the  summer  of  the  year  1880,  George  A. 
Jarvis,  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y,,  moved  by  his  sense 
of  the  great  good  which  might  thereby  accrue 
to  the  cause  of  Christ,  and  to  the  Church  of 
which  he  was  an  ever-o^rateful  member,  jrave 
to  the  General  Theological  Seminary  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  certain  securities, 
exceeding  in  value  eleven  thousand  dollars,  for 
the  foundation  and  maintenance  of  a  Lecture- 
ship in  said  seminary\ 

Out  of  love  to  a  former  pastor  and  enduring 
friend,  the  Right  Rev.  Benjamin  Henry  Pad- 
dock, D.D.,  Bishop  of  Massachusetts,  he 
named  the  foundation  ''The  Bisiior  Paddock 
Lectureship." 

The  deed  of  trust  declares  that  "  The  sub- 
jects of  the  lectures  shall  be  such  as  appertain 
to  the  defence  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ, 
as  revealed  in  the  Holy  Bible,  and  illustrated 
in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  against  the 
varying  errors  of  the   day,   whether  material- 


Vlll  THE  BISHOP  PADDOCK  LECTURES. 

istic,  rationalistic,  or  professedly  religious,  and 
also  to  its  defence  and  confirmation  in  respect 
of  such  central  truths  as  the  Trinity,  the  Atone- 
ment, Justification,  and  the  hispiration  of  the 
Word  of  God ;  and  of  such  central  facts  as  the 
ChurcJi  s  Divine  Order  and  Sacraments,  her 
historical  Reformation,  and  her  rights  and 
powers  as  a  pure  and  national  Church.  A7td 
other  subjects  may  be  chosen  if  unanimously 
approved  by  the  Board  of  Appointment  as 
being  both  timely  and  also  within  the  true 
intent  of  this  Lectureship." 

Under  the  appointment  of  the  Board  created 
by  the  trust,  the  Rev.  C.  W.  E.  Body,  M.A., 
D.C.L.,  delivered  the  Lectures  for  the  year 
1894,  contained  in  this  volume. 


PREFACE. 


The  accompanying  Lectures  were  written 
amidst  the  incessant  demands  of  responsible 
administrative  work.  In  accordance  with  the 
regulation  governing  the  Bishop  Paddock 
foundation,  they  are  now  published  as  a  con- 
tribution to  Old  Testament  study.  They  do 
not  aim  at  setting  forth  a  clear-cut,  critical 
theory,  a  task  which  the  present  writer  would 
regard  as  altogether  premature,  even  if  he  felt 
himself  qualified  to  undertake  it.  Their  object 
is  rather  to  plead  for  a  re-examination  from 
certain  fundamental  standpoints,  to  which  ad- 
equate attention  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
given,  of  modern  critical  hypotheses  which  are 
clamouring  for  immediate  acceptance.  They 
embody  a  strong  personal  conviction  that  great 
harm  will  result  from  regarding  such  matters  as 
fully  decided,  either  on  the  part  of  Old  Testa- 
ment scholars  or  of  the  Church  at  lar^je.  It 
seems  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  in  empha- 


X  PREFA  CE. 

sislng  strongly  points  of  difference  from  well- 
known  authorities,  I  cordially  unite  in  the  ap- 
preciation of  their  high  literary  position  and 
ripe  scholarship. 

C.  W.  E.  BODY. 

New  York,  October^  1894. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE    I. 

THE  CRITICAL   PROBLEM   IN  GENERAL. 

Introductory :  pagb 

Critical  difficulties  no  new  thing — The  experi- 
ence of  the  past  a  lesson  of  patience  and 
hope.     ........       4 

The  uncertain  basis  of  the  literary  analysis 
deduced  from  the  nature  of  the  process 
employed.     .......       5 

Divergence  between  Ewald  and  modern  crit- 
ics— between  Driver  and  Cornill — Witness 
of  Eichorn  and  Addis.  ....        7 

The  real  question  in  regard  to  the  assumed 
documents,  not  merely  as  to  their  extent, 
but  as  to  their  historical  position  and  mutual 
relationship.  ......       8 

The  consequent  necessity  for  further  investi- 
gation and  revision  by  English-speaking 
scholars  on  grounds  archaeological,  histori- 
cal, and  theological  as  well  as  literary — 
Insufficiency  from  this  standpoint  of  the 
works  of  Driver  and  Robertson  Smith.  .      1 1 

The  main  object  of  Holy  Scripture  is  not 
touched  by  critical  questions,  hence  the 
Church's  work  will  not  suffer  from  reasona- 
ble suspense  of  judgment.  .         .         .13 


Xll  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


The  ultimate  decision  will  lie  with  the  Christian 
consciousness  when  fully  informed.       .         .15 

Illustration  from  the  controversy  as  to  Evolu- 
tion of  the  importance  of  separating  the 
various  elements  of  the  critical  problem — 
The  differing  standards  of  verification  for 
questions  literary,  historical,  philosophical, 
and  theological.     .         .         .          .         .          .19 

The    Literary  Question  may   be    considered 
upon  its  own  merits. 

The  critical  assumption  of  various  original 
documents  not  inconsistent  with  historical 
trustworthiness — Example  of  the  Canonical 
Gospels — The  original  substratum  of  the 
Gospels,  and  the  Diatessaron.        .         .         .21 

The  question  of  Mosaic  authorship  an  open 
one — Composite  character  of  many  Old  Tes- 
tament Books — External  testimony,  Jewish 
and  Christian — Witness  of  S.  Jerome.  .     23 

Some  portions  of  the  Hexateuch  claim  to 
represent  Mosaic  documents — Evidence  of 
Old  and  New  Testament  citations.         .         .26 

The  separate  consideration  of  the  literary 
problem  involves  no  endorsement  of  par- 
ticular critical  results.  .         .         .         -27 

Great  complexity  of  the  questions  raised  by  the 
literary  analysis.    .          .         .         .  .         .28 

The    Historical    Questions    involved  may  be 
considered  separately. 

The  trustworthiness  of  a  work  dependent  not 
on  the  date  of  its  final  form,  but  on  its 
literary  history  and  origin — A  literary  his- 
tory of  the  documents  in  question  assumed 
by  all  critics. 30 


CONTENTS.  XIU 

PAGB 

Necessity  for  the  revision  of  purely  literary 
conclusions  from  the  historical  and  archaeo- 
logical standpoints 3^ 

Witness  of  Biblical  archaeology  to  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  Sacred  Narrative — Literary 
character  of  the  Patriarchal  age — The  narra- 
tive of    Gen.   xiv. — Egyptian  references   in 
Genesis  and  Exodus — Testimony  of  Lenor- 
mant.     .....•••     3^ 

The  resemblance  of  the  earlier  narratives  in 
Genesis    to    the    Babylonian    records    fully 
consistent    with    their  Divine    inspiration — 
Such  resemblance  an  incentive  to  mission- 
ary effort.       .......      34 

The  Philosophical  presuppositions  of  modern 
criticism  must  be  distinctly  exhibited  and 
adequately  examined. 
Inadmissible    character   of    some   of    these — 
Wellhausen's    theory    of    fraudulent    inven- 
tion— Hegelian    substitution    of    impersonal 
for  personal  forces.        .         .         .         .         .36 

The  Theological  questions  at  issue. 

Unique    character    of    Holy    Scripture    suffi- 
ciently established — The  consistency  of  the 
various  representations  of  God  therein  con- 
tained. .......     3S 

The  Divine  character  of  the  dispensation,  out 
of  which  the  Christ  came  a  necessary  pos- 
tulate in  all  investigation 40 

LECTURE  II. 

THE  LITERARY  ANALYSIS  CRITICALLY  AND  HISTORICALLY 
CONSIDERED. 

History  of  the  Literary  Analysis. 

The  history  of  the  critical  analysis  falls  into 
three  main  periods.       .          .         .         .         -43 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

FIRST  PERIOD. — THE  RECENSION  HYPOTHESIS. 

Patristic  criticism — Difficulties  raised  in  the 
mediaeval  period  by  Abenezra  and  others, 
familiar  to  Christian  antiquity.     .         .          .45 

Fleury,  Vitringa,  and  Simon.  .         .         .46 

SECOND     PERIOD. THE     DOCUMENTARY     HY- 
POTHESIS. 

Astruc  and  Eichorn.         ....  .48 

The   Fragmentary  Hypothesis:  its  failure;  its 

partial  revival  in  our  own  time,    .         .          .49 
Rationalistic  standpoint  of  Eichorn — Influence 
of  this  standpoint  on  the  separation  of  the 
Jahvistic  and  Elohistic  sources — Discussion 
of  this  separation.  .         .         .         .         -54 

Position  of  De  Wette.       .         .         .         .         .56 

The  Supplementary  Hypothesis — Bleek  and 
Ewald — Critical  estimate  of  Ewald — Schra- 
der's  simplification  of  the  position  of  Ewald.     58 

THIRD     PERIOD. THE  DEVELOPMENT   HYPOTHESIS. 

Reversal  of  positions  previously  held — Re- 
vival of  the  Tiibingen  methods  by  Hup- 
feld — Work  of  Vatke  and  Reuss.  .         .61 

The  appearance  of  Wellhausen's  "  Prolego- 
mena "  coincident  with  the  final  discredit- 
ing of  the  corresponding  New  Testament 
theories.         .......     63 

Probable  issue  of   the  Development  Hypothe- 
sis— Signs  of  its  disintegration — Positions  of 
Dillmann,   Schultz,   Strack,   Kittell,   Driver, 
and  Briggs.  ......     67 

Critical  Consideration  of  the  Literary  Analy- 
sis. 

Its  minute  and  arbitrary  character — Treatment 
of  parallelisms — Improbability  of  the  pro- 
cesses it  postulates.        .         .         .         .         .72 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGE 

The  documents  P,  J,  and  E,  if  ever  existent, 
must  have  strongly  resembled  each  other 
in  their  general  outline — Bearing  on  this 
point  of  the  analogy  drawn  from  the  Dia- 
tessaron — Consequent  reversal  of  the  argu- 
ment from  the  "silence  of  P."     .         ,         .81 

The  analytical  method  now  in  vogue  largely 
inapplicable  to  the  Old  Testament  Books.     .     82 

Conclusion  as  to  the  uncertainty  surround- 
ing the  critical  conclusions  and  the  need 
for  a  comprehensive  and  thorough  revis- 
ion of  the  whole  position.         .         ,         .84 


LECTURE  III. 

THE  CREATION  AND  PARADISE. 

Introductory  : 

The  opening  chapters  of  Genesis  contain  the 
three  fundamental  "  Postulates"  of  Religion 
and  the  "primitive  Gospel  of  the  World." 
Thus  their  teaching  underlies  all  subsequent 
Revelation  and  true  human  progress.     .         .91 

Irrelevant  character  of  the  pseudo-scientific 
controversies  which  have  gathered  round 
them — Patristic  testimony  as  to  the  right 
method  of  their  interpretation.     .         .         .95 

Their  primary  object  moral  and  spiritual  rather 
than  predominantly  scientific  or  intellectual.     97 
The  Relation  between  these  early  chapters 
of  Genesis  and  the  cuneiform  tablets. 

The  fact  of  Inspiration,  like  that  of  the  Incar- 
nation, necessitates  a  true  human  factor — 
Application  of  the  Chalcedonian  formula  to 
this  subject. loi 


XVI  CONTENTS. 


PAGB 


The  two  Assyro-Babylonian  accounts  of  the 
Creation  compared  in  detail  with  the  Bibli- 
cal narrative — Bearing  of  the  comparison 
upon  the  critical  division  of  the  Jahvistic 
and  Elohistic  narratives.       ,         .         .         .109 

Conclusion  as  to  the  original  relation  of  the 
Biblical  with  the  cuneiform  accounts — 
Existence  of  literature  in  Palestine  in  the 
Patriarchal  period — Judgment  of  Schultz 
disproved — Probable  use  by  Moses  of  the 
Babylonian  wisdom.      .         .         .         .         .113 

The  Critical  Division  of  Genesis  I.  and  II. 

The  chief  historical  assumptions  which  underlie 
the  division  are  no  longer  tenable.         .         .114 

The  differences  in  the  representation  of  God's 
creative  work  are  not  antithetical,  but 
complementary — Their  statement  by  Prof. 
Briggs  corrected.  .         .         .         .         •   117 

The  meaning  and  use  of  the  Divine  Words  in 
the  two  narratives — Differing  symbolism  for 
the  communication  of  the  Divine  energy 
to  physical  nature,  and  to  spiritual  and 
rational  beings.     .         .         .         .         .         .119 

The  position  of  the  second  narrative  as  supple- 
mental to  the  first  in  regard  to — 
{a)  Man's  unique  nature. 
(ji)  The  relation  of  Man  to  the  creation. 
(^)  The   office    of   sex  in   regard   to    his 

higher  development.  .         .         .121 

The  protection  thus  thrown  around  the  ofhce  of 
woman  in  regard  to  the  race.        .  .         .122 

Relation  of  the  Name  "The  Lord  God"  to 
other  divine  appellations — The  absolute  char- 
acter of  the  Name  thus  used.         .         .         .123 


CONTENTS.  XVll 

PACB 

The  "  days  "  of  Creation  causal  and  continuous 
rather  than  temporal — Importance  of  their 
teachings.      .         .         .         .         .         .         -125 

Conclusion  that  Genesis  I.  and  II.  are  bound 
together  by  spiritual  ties  which  centre  in 
the  fact  of  the  Incarnation — The  recogni- 
tion of  these  ties  essential  to  true  human 
progress.      .         .         .         .         .         .         .126 

LECTURE  IV. 

THE  FALL  AND   ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

Introductory  : 

The  faith  of  the  Incarnation  in  regard  to  the 
unique  endowments  and  destiny  of  man 
foreshadowed  in  the  first  two  chapters  of 
Genesis — The  permanent  office  of  these 
chapters  in  the  preparation  of  men  for  the 
fuller  teaching  of  the  Gospels — Illustrations 
from  the  Psalter,  the  "  Angelic  Song  "  of  the 
Eucharist,  S.  Paul,  and  S.  Chrysostom.        .    133 

The  spiritual  realization  of  the  deeper  lessons 
of  Scripture  the  antidote  to  critical  dangers.    134 

The  underlying  principles  of  our  Lord's 
Temptation  and  Passion  foreshadowed  in 
the  narrative  of  Genesis  III. 

The  approach  of  evil  from  without — The  cre- 
ation the  channel  of  approach — Man's  su- 
preme responsibility  for  the  creation  the 
object  of  attack — Analogy  in  our  Blessed 
Lord's  Temptation.        .          .         .          ,         .137 

The  significance  of  the  trees  of  the  garden — 
The  tree  of  life,  the  supernatural  source  of 
sustenance    of    man's   higher   nature — The 


XVlll  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  en- 
shrining the  necessary  law  of  man's  rational 
and  spiritual  development — The  knowledge 
of  evil  to  be  gained,  not  by  fatal  experi- 
ence of  it,  but  by  growth  in  goodness,  .    140 

The  Babylonian  fragment  as  to  a  Fall  of 
man.      .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .141 

The  assault  on  womanhood  characteristic  of 
the  Evil  One — The  three  stages  of  the  attack 
upon  Eve,  affecting — 
{a)  Her  loyalty. 
(Jf)  Her  reverence. 
{c)    Her  desire. 
Analogy  in  the  case  of  our  Lord — Warning  as 
to  woman's  rightful  sphere  of  responsibility.    143 

The  Divinely  constituted  relation  between  the 
sexes  the  ground  of  the  successful  tempta- 
tion of  Adam.        ......    144 

The  spread  of  evil  by  successive  perversions  of 
God's  gifts — Necessity  for  all  time  of  the 
warnings  here  given — Application  to  the 
mystery  of  the  Passion.          .         .         .         .147 

The  manifestation  of  evil  in  the  presence  of 
God — Some  Critical  objections  consid- 
ered. 

Alleged  jealousy  of  God — The  Divine  sentence, 
a  manifestation  not  of  jealousy  but  of 
mercy — Testimony  of  S.  Athanasius  and  S. 
Chrysostom.  .         .         .         .         .         -153 

Alleged  objection  to  the  Omniscience  of  God — 
The  Divine  questioning  designed  to  bring 
man  to  repentance — S.  Chrysostom  on  this 
point 154 

The  double  sentence  of  "  death"  and  "  expul- 
sion "  corresponds  to  the    double  aspect  of 


CONTENTS.  XIX 

PACK 

human  nature  in  Genesis  i.  26 — Illustra- 
tion from  the  narrative  of  the  Passion.  .  155 
Conclusion  that  Genesis  I.,  II.,  and  III., 
whilst  in  some  way  related  to  the  Baby- 
lonian wisdom,  are  indissolubly  connected 
by  close  spiritual  ties  which  unite  them 
to  all  subsequent  Revelation.  .  .  .156 
The  literary  division  would  only  enhance  the 
miracle  of  their  spiritual  unity  and  rich- 
ness.     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .160 

LECTURE  V. 

THE  DELUGE  AND  THE  PATRIARCHS. 
THE  DELUGE. 

Introductory : 

Mediate    position    of     the    narrative    of     the 
Deluge — 

{a)  In  the  book  of  Genesis. 
ip)   In    regard    to    Holy    Scripture    gen- 
erally. .  .          .         .         .         .164 

Its  abiding  moral  and  spiritual  significance — 
The  light  thus  thrown  upon  the  Passion  of  our 
Lord.     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .165 

Detailed    comparison    of    the    Biblical    and 
cuneiform  accounts. 
Resemblance  of  the  cuneiform  records  to  both 

the  Elohistic  and  the  Jahvistic  narratives.    .    171 
Possible   grounds   for    Egyptian   influence  on 

the  setting  of  the  Biblical  account.        .         .172 
WidesjDread  tradition  of  a  Deluge.  .  .173 

The  critical  division  of  the  narrative  of  the 
Deluge. 
The  division  derives  no  support  from  the  cunei- 
form tablets — It  would  present   fewer  diffi- 
culties if  P  were  the  earlier  document.  .    175 


XX  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The  alleged  duplications  in  the  narrative  in  re- 
gard to — 

{a)  The  wickedness  of  man. 
{b)  The  entrance  into  the  ark. 
\c)  The  Deluge. 
Difficulty  as  to  the  duration  of  the  Deluge  cre- 
ated by  the  critical  hypothesis.     .          .         .181 
The  writer's  primary  object  theological  rather 
than  simply  historical — Bearing  of  this  upon 
the  distribution  of  the  Divine  Names.             .    182 
Conclusion  that  the  critical  analysis  must  be 
re-examined    upon    broader   and   deeper 
grounds 183 

THE  PATRIARCHAL  HISTORY. 

Introductory  : 

The  critical  analysis  now  comparatively  un- 
important—  The  parallelism  of  J  and  E 
implies  a  common  original  which  must,  on 
the  accepted  critical  premises,  be  prior  to 
the  division  of  the  monarchy.         .  .          .185 

Alleged  unhistorical  character  of  the  Patri- 
archal History. 
The  ethnographical  theory  of  the  narratives 
put  forth  by  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen — 
Difficulty  presented  by  the  case  of  Abra- 
ham— Unsound  position  of  Schultz — Ex- 
amination of  the  main  grounds  alleged  in  its 
support — 

{a)  Alleged  difficulty  of  transmission  of 
the  Patriarchal  History — Evidence 
on  this  head  of  the  Tell-el-Amarna 
tablets. 
{b)  Alleged  difficulties  based  on  the 
narratives  themselves — Arguments 
from  the  history  of  Abraham,  Jo- 
seph, Levi,  Jacob,  and  Esau. 


CONTENTS.  XXI 

(r)  Arg"nment    from    analog-y    as    to    the 
allej^fed      unhistorical      character     of 
the  Priest's    code — This  rebutted  by 
the   direct    witness    of    archaeological 
discovery    to    the    narratives    them- 
selves, whilst   yet    further    confirma- 
tion   may    reasonably  be    looked    for 
from    the   progress    of    archaeological 
research — Recent  light   thrown  upon 
the    narrative    in    Genesis    xiv. — The 
position  of  Melchizedek — The  Egyp- 
tian details  in  the  history  of  Joseph.     195 
The  position  taken  by  Canon  Driver  as  to  the 
absence  of  historical  detail  met  by  parallel 
instances  in  other  Books.       .          .         .         .198 

Conclusion  that  the   ^Vellhausen  position  in 
regard  to  the  Patriarchal  History  cannot 
be  maintained.     .  .....   199 

Indirect  bearing  of  this  upon  the  critical  po- 
sition as  to  the  "One  Sanctuary,"  which 
gains  no  support  from  Genesis.  Spiritual 
value  of  the  Patriarchal  narratives.       .         .  200 

Appendices.         .......  203 


I. 

THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 


LECTURE   I. 

THE    CRITICAL    PROBLEM    IN    GENERAL. 

The  Church  of  the  living  God,  the  pillar  and 
ground  of  the  truth. — i  Tim.  iii.  15. 

There  can  be  little  question  that  a  wide- 
spread feeling  of  anxiety  exists  as  to  the  effect 
on  the  Christian  faith  of  the  higher  criticism 
of  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  no  new  phenom- 
enon in  the  experience  of  our  generation  to 
find  itself  confronted  with  serious  issues  affect- 
ing some  part  of  divine  revelation. 

Some  of  us  can  recall  the  controversies  as  to 
the  authenticity  of  the  Gospels  and  the  other 
New  Testament  books,  which  were  raised  by 
the  Tubingen  school ;  and  again,  the  questions 
which  grew  out  of  geological  discovery  ;  or,  still 
later,  of  the  Darwinian  theory  of  evolution,  in 
their  bearing  on  the  early  chapters  of  the  Book 
of  Genesis.  As  we  now  look  back  on  these 
half-forgotten  controversies,  which,  in  their  day, 
seemed  so  threatening,  the  retrospect  surely  is 
one  of  much  encouragement. 


4  THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

"  History,"  it  has  been  well  said,  is  "a  good 
tonic  for  desponding  souls  ;  "  and  if  there  be 
any  truth  in  the  maxim,  no  Christian  believer 
need  feel  despondent  under  present  difficul- 
ties. As  Bishop  Barry  puts  it,  in  his  recent 
volume  of  Bampton  Lectures,  "The  experience 
of  the  last  half  century,  may,  I  must  think,  read 
to  us  lessons  of  encouragement.  I  have  myself 
seen  methods  of  such  criticism  come  and  go, 
sometimes  destroying  each  other.  I  have  seen 
results  of  criticism,  once  accepted  as  final  and 
imperishable,  now  rejected  on  all  hands  ;  and 
doctrines  of  Revelation  once  scouted  as  unphil- 
osophical  and  impossible  now  allowed  to  be 
accordant  with  the  truest  and  deepest  philoso- 
phy."* Or,  to  quote  another  competent  author- 
ity, himself  no  unfriendly  opponent  of  the  critics, 
perhaps  we  may  some  of  us  think  even  too 
ready  to  accept  some  of  their  conclusions,  I 
mean  the  author  of  this  year's  Bampton  Lectures 
on  Inspiration,  Professor  Sanday.  "Scarcely 
one  of  the  discoveries  of  recent  years  has  not 
had  for  its  tendency  to  bring  back  the  course  of 
criticism  into  paths  nearer  to  those  marked  out 
by  ancient  tradition. "f     "  He  that  believeth  will 

*  Some  Lights  of  Science  on  the  Faith,  p.  38. 
f  Two  present  day  questions,  p.  37. 


UNCER  TA IX  T  Y  OF  LI  TEA' A  A'  V  A  A' A  L  YSIS.        5 

not  niak(?  haste  ;"  and  with  rcg-ard  to  few  issues 
is  such  strong,  patient  reserve  of  final  judgment 
more  necessary  than  in  reference  to  many 
of  the  dehcate  and  compHcated  Hterary  ques- 
tions of  the  Old  Testament  Criticism. 

These  theories  of  literary  analysis,  these 
methods  of  determining  the  dates  of  ancient 
documents  by  mutual  comparison,  depend  for 
the  most  part  upon  the  convergent  force  of  a 
number  of  minute  points  to  which  the  minds  of 
different  men  will  assign  very  unequal  value. 
Thus,  even  with  the  trained  perception  of  great 
scholars,  the  very  same  phenomena  will  lead 
them  at  one  time  unhesitatingly  to  one  conclu- 
sion, and  will  be  held  at  another  to  indicate  pre- 
cisely the  opposite.  To  the  mind  of  Ewald,  for 
example,  the  phenomena  of  the  Hexateuch 
necessitated  the  placing  of  the  source  from  which 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  assumed  to  be 
taken  far  earlier  than  that  of  the  next  two  chap- 
ters. All  critics  now  hold  the  very  reverse. 
It  is,  of  course,  true  that  this  reversal  of  judgment 
is  mainly  due  to  the  introduction  into  the  ques- 
tion of  historical  considerations  which  have  over- 
turned the  previous  results  of  purely  internal 
literary  criticism  ;  but  the  fact  only  throws  into 
stronger  emphasis  the  complicated  and  uncertain 


6  THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

nature  of  the  investigations  in  question.  How 
largely  the  subjectivity  of  the  critics  must  show 
itself  in  such  refined  and  subtle  analysis,  is  con- 
fessed by  Eichorn,  who  may  justly  be  ranked  as 
the  founder  of  modern  Old  Testament  criti- 
cism. 

Speaking  of  this  work  a  century  ago,  Eichorn 
says:  "It  demands  a  healthful  and  ever  cheer- 
ful spirit,  and  how  long  will  one  maintain  it  in 
such  toilsome  investigations.  It  demands  the 
keenest  insight  into  the  internal  condition  of 
every  book,  and  who  will  not  be  dulled  after  a 
while  ?  "  *  Nor  can  it  be  urged  that  the  con- 
centration of  so  many  minds  on  the  subject, 
since  Eichorn's  time,  has  removed  the  force  of 
this  difficulty,  for  look  at  the  situation  to-day. 
Our  leading  English  authority,  Dr.  Driver,  as 
some  of  you  will  remember,  postulates  for  the 
Hexateuch  (excluding  Deuteronomy),  three 
primary  sources,  two  of  which  he  acknowledges 
it  is  often  impossible  to  accurately  distinguish 
from  each  other — a  supplemental  source,  and 
probably  two  redactors — six  in  all  ;  while  Dr. 
Cornell,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  contempo- 
rary critics  in  Germany,  requires  some  fifteen 

*  Preface  to  second  edition  of  "  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament," 
quoted  in  Briggs'  "  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch,  "  p.  $0. 


IVITXESS  OF  EICIIORN  AXD  ADDIS.  J 

hands  at  least  to  account  for  the  same  phe- 
nomena. No  doubt  with  reo^ard  to  the  purely 
literar)'  question,  "  in  the  end  the  specialists 
must  decide."  But  the  fact  that  the  decision  still 
remains  to  be  given  is  equally  undisputable  ;  and 
after  one  hundred  years  of  analysis  it  would 
seem  probable,  from  the  results  so  far  attained, 
that  the  end  was  still  remote.  One  of  the  most 
recent  critical  writers,  Mr.  Addis,  candidly 
admits,  that  as  new  facts  are  brouijht  to  \\'A\X., 
the  theories  which  account  for  them  must 
change  ;  and  proceeds  :  "  We  shall  see  that  the 
work  is  very  far  from  being  ended  now  "'=' — a 
frank  statement  of  the  actual  condition  of  the 
case.  For  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
question  of  real  importance  goes  much  deeper 
than  merely  what  are  the  limits  to  be  assigned 
to  one  or  more  assumed  original  documents. 
We  must  then  go  on  to  consider  the  relative 
position  and  number  of  these  documents,  and 
what  light  is  thus  thrown  upon  their  literary 
history,  date  and  trustworthiness.  That  in  the 
first  thirty  chapters  of  Genesis,  as  stated  by  Dr. 
liriggs,"!"  critics  should  be  fairly  agreed  as  to 
the  limits  of  the  source  usually  denoted  by  the 

*  Addis,  "  Documents  of  lhe__Hexateuch."     Introduction,  p.  xxiv. 
f  See  his  "  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch,"  p.  143. 


5  THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

letter  "  P,"  is  of  little  real  consequence  if  "  P" 
itself  now  turns  out  to  be  exceedingl}^  composite, 
and  is  assumed  to  be  made  up  of  an  indefinite 
number  of  sources  P^  P^ — P^  ;  the  result,  of 
course,  being  that  all  the  questions  which  were 
originally  raised  as  to  the  date  and  origin  of  P 
have  now  to  be  transferred  to  each  of  its  orig"- 
inal  sources. 

The  vista  thus  opened  up  is  not  only  long, 
but,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  limitless.  The  result 
seems  to  point  rather  to  the  possible  fruitless- 
ness  of  the  method  employed  than  to  the  likeli- 
hood of  attaining  really  ultimate  conclusions 
thereby.  Under  such  circumstances,  it 
does,  indeed,  seem  somewhat  premature  for 
Dr.  Briggs  to  lay  down  the  dictum  that  "in  the 
field  of  scholarship  the  question  is  settled.  It 
only  remains  for  the  ministry  and  the  people  to 
accept  it  and  adapt  themselves  to  it."  *  On  the 
contrary,  nothing,  it  would  seem,  could  be  more 
disastrous  than  that  Christian  people  gen- 
erally should  come  to  regard,  as  finally  closed  in 
the  present  critical  direction,  questions  so  intri- 
cate in  their  various  parts,  so  uncertain  for  the 
most  part,  alike,  in  their  method  and  their 
results,   and  so  far-reaching    in    their  ultimate 

*  Higher  Criticism  of  the  liexateuch,  p.  144.  ff. 


TJIE  PROBLEM  NOT  YET  SETTLED.  9 

issues.  Granted  by  all  means  that  these  ques- 
tions once  raised  cannot  be  ignored  or  shelved, 
that  they  deserve  and  should  receive  the  deep- 
est consideration  at  the  hands  of  our  most 
devout  and  scholarly  minds.  Let  all  this  be 
asserted  as  emphatically  as  may  be  necessary. 
Not  merely  let  the  German  critical  conclusions 
be  revised  by  the  independent  study  of  our  best 
Enoflish  and  American  thinkers,  but  let  their 
methods  be  supplemented  by  a  wider  and 
deeper  research,  in  which  considerations,  archse- 
olo^^ical,  historical,  and  not  least,  theological, 
will  be  fully  taken  into  account. 

Certainly  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  we  have  as 
yet  much  more  than  the  promise  of  such  an 
exhaustive  treatment  of  the  question  by  Eng- 
lish-speaking scholars.  Professor  Robertson 
Smith's  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church  " 
is  little  more  than  a  course  of  popular  lectures 
on  some  main  aspects  of  the  subject,  delivered 
at  first  with  a  local  and  personal  aim,  with  the 
object  of  dispelling  prejudice  created  against 
him  by  his  trial  before  the  Free  Kirk  of  Scot- 
land. Canon  Driver's  "  Introduction  to  the  Lit- 
erature of  the  Old  Testament ''  is  unquestion- 
ably a  most  valuable  work ;  but.  as  its  title 
indicates,  it  is  entirely  concerned  with  the  internal 


lO         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

and  literary  side  of  the  question  to  the  exclusion 
of  other  aspects.  Moreover,  we  have  Canon 
Driver's  own  authority  for  saying  that  its  size  is 
so  limited  by  the  terms  of  his  agreement  with 
the  publishers  as  to  prevent  anything  like  an 
adequate  discussion  of  the  grounds  on  which  his 
various  conclusions  rest.*  These  two  volumes 
may  be  taken  practically  to  represent  the  whole 
presentation  of  the  critical  problem  to  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking public  by  our  own  scholars.  It  is 
perhaps  unfortunate,  that  under  these  circum- 
stances the  nature  of  Canon  Driver's  book 
should  compel  him  to  put  forth  many  results, 
the  grounds  of  which  he  is  unable  fully  to 
explain,  and  that  he  is  accordingly  obliged  to 
fall  back  for  his  authority  so  largely  upon  the 

*  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament.  "  For  it  is  not 
more  than  just  to  myself  that  I  should  state,  that  by  the  terms  of  my  z%xt^- 
Tae.-w\.,\vi2&  limited  in  space:  ....  There  have  been  many  matters  on 
which  I  would  gladly  have  given  fuller  particulars  ;  there  have  been  opin- 
ions which  I  should  often  be  glad  to  notice  or  discuss  more  fully  than 
I  have  done,  if  only  out  of  respect  for  those  who  held  them ;  but  my 
limits  have  forbidden  this,  and  I  have  repeatedly  omitted  or  abbre- 
viated what  I  had  originally  written,  sometimes,  no  doubt,  to  the  read- 
er's advantage,  though  perhaps  not  always  so Completeness 

has  not  been  attainable.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  grounds  for  a  conclu- 
sion have  been  stated  with  approximate  completeness ;  but  generally  it 
has  been  found  impossible  to  mention  more  than  the  more  salient  or 
important  ones.  This  is  especially  the  case  in  the  analysis  of  the  Hex- 
ateuch  A  full  statement  and  discussion  of  the  grounds  for  this  belongs 
to  a  commentary."     Preface,  p.  v.,  vi. 


O  UR  PRE  SEN  T  DUTY.  II 

aorreement  of  German  critics.  Assuming  that 
(icrman  methods,  however  vahiable,  have,  as 
Professor  Ramsay  has  lately  shown,  their  special 
dangers, '='  that  they  do  therefore  need  to  be 
corrected  by  the  same  exhaustive  and  patient 
skill  which  English  scholars  have  so  splendidly 
brought  to  bear  upon  similar  hypotheses  with 
reofard  to  the  New  Testament  writinofs  ;  it  is 
clear  that  such  a  process  of  corrective  revision 
can  only  be  said  to  have  begun. 

The  clergy  and  people  can  therefore  well 
afford  to  work  on  at  present  undisturbed  by 
problems  of  this  kind,  whilst  using  the  Sacred 
Word  for  those  eternal  purposes  for  which  it  was 
given  to  the  Church — for  the  education  of  human 
consciences  and  for  the  building  up  of  souls  in 
faith  and  holiness.  Moreover,  we  should  not 
forget  that  by  the  practically  unanimous  consent 
of  English  speaking  critics,  their  conclusions  in 
no  way  affect  the  Divine  inspiration  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  or  the  reverend  regard  due  to  the 
Revelation  they  enshrine.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
claimed  by  its  chief  English  supporters  that  the 
results  of  the  HiMier  Criticism  tend  to  strengthen 
men's  apprehension  of  both  these  points.  Our 
clergy  may,  however,  be  content  to  bear  with 

*  See  Appendix  A. 


12  THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

some  complacency  any  temporary  loss  in  this 
respect,  as  the  applications  which  have  hitherto 
been  made  of  the  Higher  Criticism  to  this  end 
e.  g.  in  Canon  Cheyne's  recent  volume  called  the 
"  Hallowing  of  Criticism,"  do  not  appear  to  be 
so  strikingly  successful  as  to  lead  ordinary  par- 
ish priests  to  anticipate  great  results  from  a 
similar  method  in  their  ministrations  to  an 
averao;-e  conoreo-ation.  A  recent  writer  in  one 
of  our  leadincr  mao-azines  has  rebuked  theolo- 
gians  for  spending  time  over  disputing  whether 
Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch  which  would  be 
more  usefully  employed  in  disseminating  correct 
ideas  as  to  economic  and  social  questions,  par- 
ticularly as  to  what  "constitutes  a  measure  or 
standard  of  value,"  and  has  had  something  to 
say  even  for  so  novel  and  startling  a  proposi- 
tion. However  much,  so  far  as  professed  theo- 
logians are  concerned,  can  rightly  and  conclu- 
sively be  urged  on  the  other  side,  at  least  this 
measure  of  truth  may  be  conceded  in  the  asser- 
tion, that  the  application  of  the  Divine  Word  to 
the  varying  needs  of  men  is  the  paramount 
office  of  the  Church,  and  that  this  is  not  likely 
to  be  greatly  advanced  by  a  discussion  whether 
the  passage  thus  applied  is  taken  from  P„  P^ 
or  Px-     Undoubtedly  every  question  affecting, 


THE  FINAL  DECISION  WITH  THE  CHURCH.    I  3 

however  indirectly,  God's  Holy  Word,  is  of  great 
interest  to  a  devout  soul,  and  the  matter  in 
hand  well  merits  the  sympathetic  study  of  our 
clergy  and  better  educated  laity.  But  it  cannot 
be  too  strongly  emphasized  that  in  the  present 
state  of  the  question  anything  but  a  suspended 
decision  on  many  of  its  literary  issues  would  be 
for  most  of  us  alike  premature  and  unnecessary. 
Nor  need  we  fear  that  the  main  and  essential 
questions  will  in  this  way  be  settled  behind  our 
backs  by  a  few  Hebrew  specialists.  The  work 
which  will  decide  the  points  which  really  concern 
our  religious  life  must  be  fully  laid  open  to  the 
Christian  public  ;  and  the  ultimate  decision  will 
rest  not  with  Oriental  specialists,  but  with  the 
enlightened  consciousness  of  the  Church  put  in 
possession  of  all  the  facts,  and  informed  by  the 
Eternal  and  Divine  Spirit.  For  the  arguments 
from  style  and  vocabulary,  which  must  of  course 
be  mainly  estimated  by  specialists,  confessedly 
play  but  a  comparatively  unimportant  part  in  the 
matter.  The  critics  of  the  present  day  allow  that 
on  this  side  of  their  position  they  can  lay  least 
stress,  although  it  was  originally  the  ground 
upon  which  the  whole  critical  fabric  rested. 
In  the  ofreat  mass  of  the  Old  Testament 
writings    (excluding   certain    books   like  Ezra, 


14  THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

Chronicles,  etc.,)  no  such  difference  of  style 
exists  as  to  form  a  reasonable  ground  for  deter- 
mining thereby  the  date  of  the  document. 
Prof.  Robertson  Smith  maintains  '='  that  the 
Hebrew  text  underwent  a  complete  revision  at 
the  hands  of  "  the  Scribes,"  after  which  all  vari- 
ant copies  were  destroyed  ;  upon  which  Dr. 
Hodgkins,  the  eminent  European  historian,  per- 
tinently remarks:  "If  the  Masoretic  plough 
and  harrow  have  gone  over  the  ground  obliter- 
ating" the  marks  of  earlier  destructions,  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  question  of  the  authorship  of  the 
different  books  is  very  much  taken  out  of  the 
hands  of  Hebrew  specialists."  f  The  toil  of  in- 
vestigation must,  of  course,  fall  upon  the  few, 
but  the  ultimate  decision  as  to  the  validity  of 
their  conclusions,  so  far  as  they  really  affect  the 

*  "  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church.  "  (2nd.  Ed.)  "  There  is 
abundant  evidence  that  in  earUer  ages  Hebrew  books  differed  as  much 
as  books  of  the  New  Testament  or  more."      p.  60. 

"  In  later  times  every  trace  of  these  variant  copies  disappeared.  They 
must  have  been  suppressed  or  gradually  superseded  by  a  deliberate  effort 
which  has  been  happily  compared  by  Prof.  Noldeke,  to  the  action  of  the 
Caliph  Othman  in  destroying  all  copies  of  the  Koran  which  diverged 
from  the  standard  text  that  he  had  adopted.  There  can  be  no  question 
who  were  the  instruments  in  their  work.  The  Scribes  alone  possessed 
the  necessary  influence  to  give  one  text  or  one  standard  MS.  a  position 
of  such  supreme  authority,"        pp.  62,  63. 

f  Old  Testament  Criticism,  p.  14. 


NEED  OE  DISEXTAaWGLEMENT.  I  5 

position  and  office  of  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures, will  be  with  the  Christain  consciousness 
at  large  :  with  the  verdict  of  the  threat  spiritual 
society,  the  Church  of  the  living  God,  ordained 
to  be  for  all  time,  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the 
Truth. 

We  may  perhaps  draw  a  useful  illustration 
at  this  point  from  the  almost  exhausted 
controversy  as  to  Evolution.  W^e  are  so  accus- 
tomed to-day  to  see  theologians  postulating 
Evolution  as  a  probable  method  of  the  Divine 
working  that  it  requires  a  mental  effort  to  recall 
the  antagonism  at  one  time  assumed  to  exist 
between  the  two.  If  we  set  ourselves  to  ask 
what  has  brought  about  this  changed  relation, 
the  answer  is  clear.  It  has  come  from  the  gradual 
disentanorlincr  of  the  scientific  and  reliofious 
aspects  of  the  matter.  The  claim  of  evolution- 
ists to  deduce  from  a  primordial  molecular 
arrangement  all  the  phenomena  of  the  Universe, 
both  mental  and  spiritual,  has  been  seen  to  be 
an  utterly  unscientific  deduction  from  the 
biological  phenomena  on  which  the  theory 
rests ;  whilst  in  the  domain  of  physical  life 
itself  it  has  only  made  more  prominent  the 
immanence  of  a  Divine  Mind  to  conduct  the 
evolutionary     process     to     such     stupendous 


I  6         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

and  magnificent  results.  Thus  the  Theistic 
or  Christain  view  of  nature  has  found  in 
Evolution  as  a  scientific  attempt  to  indicate 
the  manner  of  God's  creative  working,  a  friend 
rather  than  a  foe,  so  soon  as  it  was  disentangled 
from  its  materialistic  dress  and  reduced  to  the 
limits  of  a  purely  scientific  question.  The  result 
has  certainly  been  to  enrich  theology  with 
deeper  and  grander  views  of  teleology  than 
were  current  amongst  us  before,  however  true 
it  may  be  that  such  deeper  views  are  not  them- 
selves new,  but  were  familiar  in  the  teaching  of 
the  o-reat  Doctors  of  the  ancient  Church  :  whilst 
on  the  other  hand  the  scientific  study  of  the 
matter  has  been  allowed  to  proceed  on  its  own 
lines  undisturbed  by  theological  questions. 
Not,  of  course,  that  all  evolutionary  ques- 
tions can  thereby  be  held  to  have  been  set  at 
rest,  at  least  from  a  scientific  standpoint.  The 
names  of  Romanes  and  Weismann,  of  Huxley 
and  Spencer,  at  once  suggest  scientific  aspects 
of  the  matter  of  an  almost  fundamental  charac- 
ter on  which  the  orravest  diverorence  exists. 
But  the  matter  is  freed  from  alien  issues.  The 
questions  at  stake  have  been  seen  to  have  no 
vital  bearing  on  the  substance  of  the  Christian 
faith. 


COMPLEXITY  OF  THE  rKOBLEM.  I  7 

A  little  learning;-  is  proverbially  danger- 
ous, and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  effect  of 
the  first  presentation  of  a  great  question  to  the 
world.  It  takes  some  time  usually  for  the  true 
limits  of  a  subject  to  come  home  to  the  popular 
apprehension  and  for  its  real  bearing  on  other 
departments  of  knowledge  to  be  accurately 
seen.  Hence,  to  shorten  so  far  as  may  be  this 
period  of  confusion  and  so  to  minimize  its  un- 
settling effects,  is  eminently  desirable.  When 
the  smoke  has  cleared  away  and  the  various 
aspects  of  a  question,  spiritual,  philosojjhical 
and  scientific  are  clearly  and  accurately  distin- 
guished, we  may  generally  leave  each  to  its 
appropriate  method  of  verification  with  little 
risk  of  harm. 

A  precisely  similar  necessity  appears  to  exist 
in  recjard  to  the  Hicfher  Criticism  of  the  Old 
Testament.  The  purely  literary  questions 
raised  by  Astruc  more  than  a  century  ago  as  to 
the  sources  made  use  of  by  IMoses  in  the  com- 
position of  the  Pentateuch  have  issued  in  a 
complex  growth  of  considerations,  literary,  his- 
torical, philosophical  and  theological,  which  are 
vaguely  grouped  together  under  this  one  head. 
The  complex  issues  thus  raised  must  clearly  be 
tried  by  completely  different  standards  of  veri- 


I  8         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

fication  and  judgment  arrived  at  in  utteriy 
diverse  ways.  The  theological  question,  for 
example,  as  to  the  unity  of  the  Revelation  of 
God  made  in  the  several  parts  of  the  Hexateuch, 
appeals  to  very  different  faculties,  and  must  be 
tried  at  the  bar  of  a  totally  distinct  tribunal  from 
those  of  literary  analysis  and  comparison. 
The  same  is  surely  true  with  matters  philo- 
sophical which  deal  with  the  origin  and  growth 
of  religion  on  the  one  side,  and  matters  histor- 
ical which  must  be  decided  by  actual  concrete 
evidence  on  the  other. 

One  fundamental  object  I  have  set  before  my- 
self in  this  lecture  is  to  emphasize  the  necessity 
for  the  subdivision  of  these  various  problems, 
and  to  endeavour  to  contribute  in  some  decree 
towards  the  task.  It  is  well  known  that  the  dan- 
ger of  many  explosives  lies  in  their  holding  cer- 
tain substances  in  combination  which  when  sep- 
arated are  perfectly  harmless.  The  analogy  is, 
I  think,  a  true  one.  As  matters  now  stand, 
there  seems  grave  danger  on  many  sides  lest 
fundamental  moral  and  spiritual  truths  should 
be  assumed  to  hang  upon  the  issue  of  purely 
literary  methods  ;  or,  even  worse,  should  be  re- 
duced to  a  condition  of  more  or  less  suspended 
animation  for  the  indefinite  period  which  may 


THE  LITERARY  RROIU.EM.  1 9 

elapse  before  these  literary  matters  arrive  at  a 
final  solution.  It  may,  of  course,  be  found  that 
the  separation  here  advocated  is  impossible, 
that  the  connection  between  the  several  classes 
of  issues  is  so  close  and  vital  as  to  defy  any  such 
attempt  at  analysis.  But  in  any  case  the 
effort  is  worth  makincr  as  indicatincr  one  of 
the  most  hopeful  directions  from  which  the 
matter  can  be  approached.  Its  failure  can 
in  no  way  aggravate  the  situation,  while  its 
success  would  very  largely  remove  the  present 
tension  and  promote  the  causes  alike  of  truth 
and  charity. 

To  commence,  then,  with  the  literary  prob- 
lem. It  would  seem  that  this  is  in  itself  inde- 
pendent of  all  other  factors,  w^hether  philosoph- 
ical, theological  or  historical,  and  at  least  for 
the  time  may  be  considered  separately.  Allow- 
incT  due  w^eio^ht  to  the  difficulties  which  undeni- 
ably  affect  such  purely  internal  analysis,  the 
critics  claim  that  the  literary  structure  of  Gen- 
esis, for  example,  bears  witness  to  its  having 
been  derived  from  three  documentary  sources 
which  have  subsequently  been  combined  into 
the  present  book.  We  may  speak  of  these  as 
J.  E.  and  P.  respectively. 

Now,   there   is    nothing    in    this    hypothesis, 


20         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

considered  in  itself,  which  is  in  the  least  inim- 
ical to  the  full  historical  trustworthiness  of  the 
composite  narrative  thus  obtained.  The  phe- 
nomena of  the  Synoptist  Gospels,  for  example, 
have  familiarized  us  with  the  conceptions  of 
three  parallel  accounts,  each  resting  back 
upon  a  common  basis  of  experience  and  testi- 
mony, whilst  the  recently  recovered  Diates- 
saron  of  Tatian  has  given  us  an  indisputable 
example  of  the  composite  narrative  which  may 
thus  be  formed.  We  are  familiar  also  with 
the  thought  that  the  historical  character  of  the 
events  recorded  in  the  Gospels,  such  as  the 
Resurrection  of  our  Lord,  derives  much 
greater  weight  from  this  threefold  cord  of  in- 
dependent and  parallel  testimony  than  if  we 
had  only  in  our  hands  one  combined  narrative 
like  that  of  the  Diatessaron,  and  had  not 
learned  to  decompose  it  into  its  original 
sources.  We  have  learned,  too,  from  studying 
the  several  accounts  of  our  Lord's  Resurrection 
and  its  attendant  circumstances,  that  minor 
discrepancies,  such  as  the  microscope  of  criti- 
cism has  magnified  into  exaggerated  import- 
ance, are  of  no  practical  weight  against  the 
general  concurrence  of  these  independent  wit- 
nesses ;    and    in   fact   rather    strengthen    their 


CO.VPAK/SOX   ll'/T/r  THE  SVXOPTISTS.         2  1 

evidence    by   demonstratinq    the    independent 
oriq'in  of  the  several  documents. 

Further,  the  Synoptist  problem  has  made  it 
quite  clear  that  when  we  have  analyzed  our 
Diatessaron  into  its  component  parts,  we  have 
done  little  more  than  state  the  really  ultimate 
problem,  which  is  to  find  the  common  basis, 
like  the  substratum  common  to  the  Gospels, 
which  underlies  these  parallel  sources,  to  esti- 
mate the  authority  possessed  by  that  original 
groundwork,  and  its  relation  to  each  of  the 
three  derived  documents.  Our  experience 
(we  may  note  here  in  passing)  has  taught  us 
the  apparently  insuperable  difficulty  in  solving 
this  last  problem  ;  the  real  problem  of  import- 
ance, even  when  the  conditions  are  so  emin- 
ently favorable  as  they  are  in  the  case  of  the 
Synoptist  Gospels.  So  far,  then,  as  the  his- 
torical character  of  the  book  is  concerned,  it 
would  seem  that  the  critical  questions  thus 
outlined  may  safely  be  left  to  their  legitimate 
methods  of  solution,  if  such  complete  solution 
should  ever  prove  to  be  possible.* 

*cf;  Robertson,  "Early  Rclij^'ion  of  Israel."  "As  to  the  critical 
process  of  separating  the  sources  as  literary  products,  I  regard  it  as  a 
matter  of  secontlary  importance,  so  long  as  v/e  are  able,  by  the  help  of 
the  prophetic  writings,  to  determine  in  a  general  way  that  the  books,  in 
their  combined  form,  are  trustworthy  documents,  etc."     P.  477. 


2  2  THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

Nor,  if  we  take  the  assumed  composite  char- 
acter of  the  books  as  evidence  of  their  being 
post-Mosaic  in  their  present  form,  does  there 
seem  any  adequate  reason,  historical  or  theo- 
logical, to  debar  us  from  the  attempt  to  deal 
with  the  matter  from  the  purely  literary  stand- 
point. The  fact  that  Moses  is  the  chief  actor 
and  speaker  throughout  the  major  part  of  the 
narrative  no  more  involves  Mosaic  authorship, 
than  the  similar  fact  with  regard  to  Our  Blessed 
Lord  in  the  Gospels  requires  us  to  reject  their 
Apostolic  origin,  or  to  dispute  their  relation  to 
the  oral  Gospel  and  Apostolic  preaching  on  the 
one  side,  to  Tatian  and  his  Diatessaron  on 
the  other.  Nor  does  the  general  tradition  of 
Mosaic  authorship  which  we  have  inherited 
appear  to  seriously  affect  the  issue.  We  have 
only  to  think  of  the  Psalms  of  David  or  the 
Proverbs  of  Solomon  to  recall  books  admittedly 
composite,  books  whose  literary  history  in  their 
present  form  extends  for  centuries  after  the 
dates  of  David  and  Solomon  respectively.  Thus 
we  can  hardly  help  seeing  that  the  traditional 
linking  of  the  Hexateuch  with  the  name  of 
Moses  does  not  necessarily  involve  more  than  a 
fundamental  Mosaic  groundwork  as  the  basis 
of  the  whole.     Moreover,  the    Talmudic   tra- 


PATRISTIC  TESTIMOXY.  23 

dition  itself  is  (it  is  well  known)  of  an  obvi- 
ously uncritical  character,  nor  can  it  be  said  to 
derive  much  additional  support  from  Christian 
antiquity.  The  chief  Fathers  of  the  Ante-Ni- 
cene  age,  with  almost  one  consent,  postulate  a 
re-editing  or  possibly  a  complete  redrafting  of 
the  sacred  writings  under  Divine  inspiration  at 
the  hands  of  Ezra  in  the  Post-Exilic  period.  S. 
Jerome,  the  great  scholar  of  the  Post-Nicene 
period,  to  whose  authority  in  such  matters  our 
own  Church  has  given  peculiar  weight,  discusses, 
in  a  well-known  passage,  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase  "  to  this  day,''  as  it  occurs  in  the  account 
of  the  burial  of  Moses,  and  in  other  parts  of  the 
Hexateuch.  He  clearly  admits  the  difficulty  of 
finally  determining  the  date  here  referred  to, 
which  was,  of  course,  that  of  the  final  composi- 
tion of  the  books,  in  the  following  significant 
words  :  "  Sive  Moysen  dicere  volueris  auctorem 
Pentateuchi,  sive  Ezram  ejusdem  instaurato- 
rem  operis,  non  recuso.''* 

In  the  face  of  such  authority  as  this,  it  would 
be  difficult  indeed  to  assert  that  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  books  themselves  absolutely  bound 
us  down  to  the  strict  view  of  Mosaic  author- 
ship.     In  fact,  the  very  character  of  the  book 

*Adv.  IlLlvidiuin,  sec.   7. 


24         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

of  Genesis  suggests  the  use  of  original  sources 
quite  apart  from  the  modern  documentary- 
hypothesis,  whilst  the  clear  evidence  of  the 
other  historical  books  proves  (if  in  the  face  of 
S.  Luke's  prologue  any  proof  be  required)  that 
such  composite  character  is  in  every  way  con- 
sistent with  the  fullest  Divine  inspiration. 

The  Books  of  Exodus,  Numbers  and  Deu- 
teronomy do,  indeed,  plainly  assert  the  exist- 
ence of  accounts  written  by  Moses  himself  of 
certain  of  the  most  remarkable  events  therein 
narrated,  viz.  :  the  war  with  Amalek  in  Ex.  xvii., 
the  legislation  at  Sinai  contained  in  the  Book 
of  the  Covenant,  the  stations  in  the  wilderness 
journeyings,  at  least  the  legislative  part  of 
Deuteronomy,  and  the  song  in  Deut.  xxxii. 
The  literary  activity  and  development  of  the 
art  of  writinof  now  known  to  have  existed  in 
Palestine  long  before  the  Mosaic  period  would 
have  rendered  the  existence  of  such  written 
Mosaic  records  most  probable,  even  if  nothing 
had  been  said  about  them  ;  whilst  the  mention 
of  writing  in  these  special  instances,  although 
not  inconsistent  with  the  subsequent  Mosaic 
authorship  of  the  whole,  lends  itself  quite  as 
naturally  to  the  view  of  a  later  redaction. 
Nor,   in  view   of  the    facts   presented   by   the 


]i'/TA'i-:ss  OF  THE  nini.E  irsEi.r.  25 

Hooks  of  Psalms  and  Proverbs  above  referred 
to,  does  it  seem  safe  to  argue  that  the  refer- 
ences to  "  the  law  of  Moses  "  or  "  the  Book  of 
Moses,"  or  the  combination  of  these  phrases, 
can  be  held  to  shut  out  the  composite  view, 
especially  in  the  light  of  the  statements  of  the 
early  Christian  writers. 

A  more  dithcult  question,  perhaps,  is  that 
involved  in  the  New  Testament  citations,  and 
especially  in  the  words  of  our  Blessed  Lord 
Himself  Very  strong  statements  on  this 
head  have  been  made  by  teachers  of  acknowl- 
edged eminence,  to  whom  the  utmost  regard 
and  reverence  is  due.  To  me  it  seems  doubt- 
ful whether  sufficient  importance  has  been 
attached  in  this  connection  to  those  limitations 
of  race  and  time  involved  in  our  Lord's  true 
manhood,  in  that  life  under  the  Jewish  law 
which  He  for  our  sakes  voluntarily  assumed  ; 
limitations  which  affected  alike  the  scope  of 
His  teaching  and  the  sphere  of  His  work 
during  the  days  of  His  suffering  ilesh,  but 
which  were  done  away  in  the  glory  of  His 
Resurrection.  Moreover,  it  seems  by  no  means 
certain,  from  a  careful  comparison  of  the  New 
Testament  references  to  the  Books  of  the  Old, 
whether  the  words  of  Our  Lord  are  meant  to 


26         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

carry  with  them  the  statement  of  Mosaic  author- 
ship of  the  Pentateuch  as  a  whole  any  more  than 
the  phrases  we  have  noted  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Even  should  we  be  mistaken  in  this, 
it  would  appear  undesirable,  in  a  case  where 
legitimate  doubt  can  be  entertained,  to  preclude 
all  examination  into  the  matter  by  the  appeal  to 
our  Lord's  paramount  authority  ;  as  in  any  event 
we  may  well  believe  that  He  Himself  will,  by  His 
Spirit,  guide  the  devout  research  of  His  servants 
to  a  sound  and  right  conclusion  in  harmony 
with  His  own  mind  and  will. 

The  conclusion,  then,  to  which,  if  the  fore- 
going be  correct,  we  seem  to  be  led,  is  that 
it  is  possible  to  sever  the  literary  question 
from  the  various  other  issues,  historical,  philo- 
sophical and  theological,  and  to  leave  its 
further  examination  to  go  on  in  the  hands  of 
devout  and  learned  men  undisturbed  by  con- 
siderations of  its  bearing  upon  those  much 
more  important  matters.  Or,  to  express  the 
same  thing  in  the  words  of  a  thoroughly  con- 
servative English  theologian.  Dr.  Wace,  "It is 
a  matter  of  secondary  importance,  by  what 
method,  by  what  literary  process,  as  it  were, 
many  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
composed,  provided  it  be    acknowledged   and 


QUEST/OXS  TO  BE  CONSIDERED.  2'] 

borne  in  mind  that  in  the  use  of  those  Hterary 
methods  the  writers  were  controlled  and 
guided  by  the  spirit  of  God."  ''' 

It  should  be  noted  that  this  ar^jument  in  no 
way  deals  with  the  literary  question  on  its  own 
merits,  nor  tends  one  feather's  weight  in  its 
favour.  As  already  hinted,  the  subject  seems 
to  bristle  with  unsolved,  perhaps  insoluble 
questions.  The  standpoint  and  object  of  the 
Redactor,  for  example,  is  a  fundamental  point 
of  which  no  consistent  and  intelligible  account 
has  ever  been  given.  The  relation  of  the  sev- 
eral narratives  to  each  other,  and  of  the  whole 
narratives  out  of  which  the  fragments  incorpo- 
rated in  our  Hexateuch  were  taken  to  those 
fragments  themselves,  with  its  important  bearing 
on  the  "argument  from  silence,"  we  must  con- 
sider later.  Then  going  still  one  step  further 
back,  there  is  the  relation  of  the  complete  orig- 
inal documents  to  their  primary  source  to  be 
taken  all  into  account.  Add  to  these  the  initial 
difficulty  as  to  the  soundness  of  the  literary 
method  pursued  and  the  possibility  of  attaining 
any  reasonably  certain  results  thereby  (for  which 
{position  we  have  the  high  authority  of  one  who 

*  Paper  before  the  Islington  Clerical  meeting.     See  Guardian,  Jan. 
24,  1894. 


2  8         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

may,  perhaps,  be  called  our  greatest  English 
historian,  the  present  Bishop  of  Oxford),  to- 
gether with  the  criticisms  which  may  be  passed 
on  the  actual  application  of  the  method  itself 
in  its  several  details.  All  these  certainly  con- 
stitute a  formidable  list  of  matters  to  be  dealt 
with  before  the  literary  problem  can  be  said  to 
have  reached  anything  like  a  final  conclusion. 

Passing  now  from  the  literary  to  the  historical 
aspect  of  the  subject,  we  undoubtedly  come 
nearer  to  the  root  of  the  matter  ;  and  in  dealing 
with  the  dates  of  the  several  documents  and 
their  relation  to  the  other  Old  Testament  books, 
we  touch  on  issues  which  seem  much  more 
directly  to  affect  the  position  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, and  the  faith  of  Christendom  in  relation 
thereto.  Yet,  even  here  it  will  be  well  to  care- 
fully examine  the  nature  of  this  relation  and 
the  extent  to  which  it  can  be  pressed. 

It  should  be  noticed  then  that  the  assigning 
of  a  comparatively  late  date  to  the  final  re- 
dactor of  the  Hexateuch,  or  to  any  of  its  com- 
ponent parts,  is  not  in  itself  in  any  way  incon- 
sistent with  its  historical  value.  Green's  His- 
tory of  the  English  People  is  not  inferior  in 
historical  value  to  one  of  its  original  sources, 
although  loooyears  or  so  later,  while  it  maybe, 


HISTORICAL  VALi-R  JN  R1:I-ATJ0X  TO  DAIE.  2^ 

and  probably  is,  superior  to  some  of  them.  A 
cursive  MSS.  of  the  New  Testament  is  not,  by 
reason  of  its  late  date,  one  whit  less  valuable 
than  an  uncial  of  the  fourth  century,  althouL,di 
actual  examination  of  the  cursives  generally 
may,  from  other  considerations,  render  their  in- 
feriority the  most  probable  hypothesis  in  any 
particular  case.  We  may  note,  in  this  connec- 
tion, that  the  great  mass  of  critics,  both  present 
and  past  (with  the  exception  of  thorough-going 
adherents  of  the  Grafian  School,  like  Well- 
hausen)  admit  that  the  documents  thus  ana- 
lyzed themselves  rest  upon  older  documentary 
sources.  Wellhausen  and  Kuenen,  with  their 
immediate  followers,  stand  practically  alone  on 
this  point.  In  fact,  if  there  is  one  matter  upon 
which  an  almost  unanimous  consent  of  the  crit- 
ics can  be  predicted,  it  is  as  to  the  use  of  earlier 
documents  in  the  sources  known  as  P,  J,  and 
E.  The  unqualified  statement  of  Professor 
Kirkpatrick  that  "these  documents  themselves 
had  a  literary  history  before  they  were  welded 
together  into  our  present  Hexateuch ; "  and 
that  "  they  were  composed  of  existing  elements, 
partly  oral  and  i)artly  documentary,"  *  or  of 
Canon  Driver,  that  even  the  document  which  is 

*  Kirkpatrick  :  Divine  Library  of  the    Old  Testament,  p.  46. 


30         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

now  placed  latest  in  date  P,  "  is  based  upon  pre- 
existing Temple  usage,'"'''  and  that  its  originality 
consists  not  so  much  in  the  institutions  it  de- 
scribes as  in  the  setting  in  which  these  are 
placed,  only  echoes  the  general  position  of  the 
critics.  Astrue  and  Simon,  Eichorn,  Ewald, 
Schrader  and  Dillmann,  the  younger  German 
School  represented  by  Strack  and  Kittel,  all 
go  behind  the  literary  analysis  to  the  earlier 
sources  that  underlie  them.  It  seems  quite 
safe,  therefore,  to  assert  that  the  tendency  of 
sober  criticism  is  both  to  modify  the  assigned 
dates  of  the  documents  of  the  Hexateuch,  and  to 
pass  beyond  these  documents  in  estimating  the 
historical  character  of  the  narrative  to  the  far 
earlier  sources — sources  Mosaic  or  ante-Mosaic, 
it  may  well  be,  from  which  those  documents 
were  themselves  drawn. 

Thus,  it  appears  that  the  cause  of  reverent 
Biblical  study  has  everything  to  gain  from  the 
historico-critical  study  of  the  Old  Testament. 
On  the  one  side.  Professor  Robertson  in  his 
Baird  Lectures,  has  shown  abundant  cause  for 
the  contention  that  the  critics,  particularly  of 
the  more  revolutionary  school,  have  been  de- 
cidedly weak  on  the  historical  and  philosophical 

*  Driver:  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  135. 


OFFICE  OF  ARCII.KOLOGY.  -j 

side,'''  and  that  there  is  therefore  ample  jrroiind 
for  carefully  revisinir  their  work  from  that-point 
of  view  ;  whilst  on  the  other  archn:oloo-ical  re- 
search has  lately  thrown  a  Hood  of  new  li<rht 
upon  the  contemporary  history  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament period.  The  result  has  already  been  to 
remove  many  difficulties  and  to  confirm  the 
Biblical  narratives  in  a  very  strikinq-  manner. 
It  is  indeed  a  most  refreshing  chang^e  to  pass 
from  the  uncertain  probabilities  of  the  literary 
analysis  to  the  solid  ground  of  actual  discovery. 
There  were  at  one  time  indications  of  some 
jealousy  on  the  part  of  certain  critics  of  this 
new  and  fruitful  method.  A  faint  protest  was 
raised  by  anticipation  against  what  was  called 
"an  archcX'ological  reaction,"  but  it  is  satisfac- 
tory to  find  that  better  counsels  have  prevailed, 
and  that  the  critics  now  seem  content  to  cor- 
dially admit  the  archaeologists  as  co-workers 
with  themselves  in  the  Biblical  field.  Cer- 
tainly the  result  so  far  of  the  fragmentary  dis- 
coveries made  has  been  to  strikingly  increase 
the  evidence  for  the  absolute  "  bona  fides  "  and 
trustworthiness  of  the  Biblical  accounts. 

*  He  summarizes  his  judgment  in  these  striking  terms :  "  The  self- 
styled  '  higher  criticism  '  is,  indeed,  not  high  enough,  or  we  should  per- 
haps more  appropriately  say,  not  deep  enough  for  the  problem  before  it." 
Robertson:  Early  Religion  of  Israel,  p.  473. 


32  THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  EV  GENERAL. 

Thus,  we  now  know  that  the  Patriarchs  moved 
to  and  fro  in  a  society  to  whom  Hterature  and 
writing  were  perfectly  famihar.  The  historical 
circumstances  of  narratives,  like  that  of  Gen. 
xiv,  have,  under  the  flood  of  light  thus  thrown 
on  them,  regained  their  living  connection  with 
the  general  history  of  the  time.  The  same  holds 
good  of  the  parts  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  relating 
to  the  Egypt  of  the  Patriarchal  period,  or  to  the 
history  of  the  deliverance  of  the  people  from  their 
later  bondage.  These  results,  most  striking  as 
they  certainly  are,  probably  form  but  the  first 
gleanings  of  a  rich  harvest  yet  to  come.  They 
lend  added  weight  to  the  opinion  expressed  by 
Lenormant,  written  before  some  of  the  most 
important  of  these  discoveries  were  made,  viz., 
that  the  question  of  documents  is  one  thing, 
and  that  of  date  quite  another,  into  which  latter 
question  considerations  enter  which  do  not 
belong  to  the  exclusive  domain  of  science  :  and 
then  he  adds,  "  Considering  the  question  (i.e., 
of  date)  from  the  standpoint  of  pure  science, 
apart  from  all  religious  prepossession,  it 
appears  to  me  to  be  still  in  suspense  ;  and  I 
do  not  believe  it  possible  to  arrive  at  a  final 
solution,  without  taking  into  account  to  a  greater 
extent  than   has  hitherto  been  done  the  new 


BIBLICAL  ARCII.KOI.OC.V  AXD  ITS  RESULTS.  33 

elements  which  Ecryptology   and    Assyriology 
contribute  to  the  problem."  '^' 

Nor  should  we  shrink  back  and  try  to  close 
the  door  aj^ainst  discussion,  if  the  result  of 
Cuneiform  discovery  has  been  to  disclose  to  us 
a  much  closer  correspondence  than  we  im- 
agined between  the  earliest  narratives,  like 
those  of  the  Creation  and  the  Flood,  and  the 
Assyrio-Babylonian  literature.  We  may  not 
have  thought  it  probable  that  Almighty  God 
would  have  chosen  the  common  inheritance  of 
tradition  which  Israel  has  received,  together 
with  the  other  Semitic  races,  as  the  earthly 
mould  which  was  to  contain  the  rich  treasure  of 
His  Truth.  But,  should  this  be  so,  it  would  be 
but  one  reminder  amongst  many  that  God's 
ways  are  not  as  our  ways,  nor  must  we  pre- 
sume to  measure  them  by  our  imperfect  judg- 
ments. That  these  fragments  of  ancient 
thought  on  the  great  problems  of  being,  recov- 
ered from  the  dust  of  so  many  centuries, 
should  thus  have  been  embedded  in  the  firm 
rock  of  Divine  Truth  and  in  this  shape  made 
the  common  heritage  of  all  the  ages  of  faith, 
surely  casts  a  light  of  special  tenderness  upon 
the  manifold  strivings  of  men  after  God  amid 

*Lenonnant:  "  Les  Origines  de  I'liistoire."     I'reface,  p.  xjv. 


34         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

the  thick  darkness  of  heathendom,  and  stamps 
afresh  upon  the  Church's  very  title-deeds  the 
impress  of  her  missionary  character.  As  we 
now  read  those  early  portions  of  Genesis,  they 
sound  in  our  ears  the  warning  so  necessary  in 
all  our  thoughts  of  missionary  work.  "What 
God  hath  cleansed,  make  not  thou  common." 
They  add  another  strand  to  those  constrain- 
ing motives  of  love  and  obedience  which 
impel  us  to  press  on  in  our  high  enterprise,  to 
lift  off  the  veil  of  error  and  of  moral  evil  which 
now  obscures  the  illumination  of  Him  who  is 
both  "the  light  which  lighteth  every  man 
coming  into  the  world,"  and  "  the  Saviour  of  all 
men,  specially  of  them  that  believe."  As  the 
present  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  said,  in  his 
strong,  helpful  way,  four  years  ago:  "The 
general  course  of  criticism  was  aiming  not  at  a 
denial  of  the  supernatural,  but  at  a  new  inter- 
pretation of  it."  *  May  we  not  add  also  a 
deeper  realization  of  its  loving,  tender  adapta- 
tion to  the  various  movements  and  yearnings 
of  our  lost  and  sinful  humanity. 

Glancing  now  at  the  philosophical  positions 
which  underlie  much  of  the  critical  works,  is 

*  Address  to  Canterbury  Diocesan  Conference.     See  Guardian,  July 
1 6th,  1890. 


it  not,  above  all  thinors,  necessary  that  these 
should  be  clearly  and  sharply  set  forth  by 
themselves  alone,  that  so  they  may  be  consid- 
ered upon  their  own  merits  and  apart  from  the 
details  of  literary  analysis  ?  There  are  unques- 
tionably philosophical  assumptions  underlyinq- 
the  writings  of  most  of  the  German  critics,  and 
which  lari:;;-ely  colour  all  their  work,  with  which 
the  Christian  Church  can  hold  neither  parley 
nor  compromise.  We  can  have  no  common 
ground,  for  example,  wnth  the  standpoint  of 
Kuenen,  or  Renan,  or  Stade,  who  degrade  the 
religion  of  Israel  from  its  lofty  place  as  the 
Divine  preparation  for  the  Son  of  God,  and 
attribute  to  it  a  purely  naturalistic  origin.  We 
decline  to  entertain  with  Wellhausen,  as  a 
rational  explanation  of  our  sacred  writings,  an 
hypothesis  which  assigns  to  important  portions 
of  them  an  origin  hardly  distinguishable  from 
fraudulent,  and  which  strips  them  of  all  real 
weight.  The  complete  "bona  fides"  of  the 
sacred  writers  is  a  postulate  which  we  feel 
amply  justified  in  making,  and  a  theory  which 
necessitates  the  contrary  assumption  stands 
rightly  condemned.  The  fruitful  soil  from  which 
sprang  the  Christ,  the  writings  which  on  every 
page  witness   for  truth  and  righteousness  with 


36         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

passionate  devotion,  the  institutions  which  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  Christian  Church,  and 
which  are  associated  with  an  unique  moral  and 
spiritual  progress  of  humanity  extending  con- 
tinuously over  some  forty  centuries,  these  surely 
need  no  other  argument  to  shield  them  from 
the  aspersion  of  being  cradled  in  sheer  inven- 
tion and  fraud. 

Nor  less  should  we  be  on  our  guard  against 
the  exaggerated  Hegelian  position  which  substi- 
tutes the  operation  of  impersonal  tendencies 
for  the  work  of  great  spiritual  leaders,  and  pos- 
tulates unreal  antagonisms  as  the  cause  of  abid- 
ing and  beneficent  spiritual  progress.*  No 
Christian  would  for  one  moment  ignore  the 
influence  of  "tendencies"  acting  on  a  wide 
scale  upon  nations  or  communities,  or  refuse  to 
see  in  them  an  important  factor  in  the  Divine 
government  of  the  world.  But  in  spiritual 
things  the  law  always  holds  good,  that  God 
works  mainly,  by  the  election  of  individuals 
fitted  to  originate  great  epochs  of  progress  ; 
and  that  a  spiritual  movement  invariably 
beofins    to    deteriorate    when     it    becomes    a 

*  This  has  been  well  expressed  by  Principal  Fairbaim  :  "  Impersonal 
tendencies  were  greater  than  conscious  persons.  Internal  divisions  and 
jealousies  were  forces  weightier  and  more  victorious  than  the  enthusiasm 
of  humanity."     Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  273. 


THE  BATTLE  TOR    THE  SUPERXATIRAL.       2)7 

tendency  of  the  many  or  the  property  of  the 
crowd. 

To  all  these  varied  forms  then  of  the  natural- 
istic hypothesis  the  Christian  may  well  reply  in 
the  words  of  the  late  Professor  Jowett,  one  who 
was  at  least  no  prejudiced  supporter  of  the  super- 
natural :  "  When  interpreted  like  any  other 
book,  by  the  same  rules  of  evidence  and  the 
same  canons  of  criticism,  the  Bible  will  still  re- 
main unlike  any  other  book."  '''  How  else  shall 
we  explain  its  absolute  uniqueness,  its  immeas- 
urable superiority  to  every  effort  of  human  rea- 
son or  aspiration  of  the  human  soul,  but  by  the 
consistentanswer  of  the  Christian  Church,  that  it 
enshrines  a  unique  Revelation  wherein  the  God 
and  Father  of  us  all  has  unveiled  His  glory  to 
all  generations  of  men.  Yes,  Christians  rightly 
feel  that  the  battle  for  the  supernatural  alike  in 
the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  New  has  been 
fought  around  the  personality  and  office  of 
Jesus  the  Christ,  and  on  the  trustworthiness  of 
the  Christian  writings.  They  know  that  this  bat- 
tle has  not  merely  been  fought,  but  that  it  has 
been  won,  and  the  Church  is  rightly  impatient  of 
any  attempt  to  obscure  the  decisive  issue  by  ir. 

*  Essay  on  the  Interpretation  of  Scripture,  section  3  :  in  "  Essays  and 
Reviews." 


38  THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

relevant  questions  of  uncertain  analysis  or  dates. 
Thus,  if  we  are  told  that  the  conceptions  of 
God  in  one  Old  Testament  document  are  in- 
consistent with  those  in  another,  we  can, 
without  on^  moment's  hesitation,  appeal  from 
the  witness  of  the  German  scholar  in  his  study 
to  that  of  the  countless  multitudes  of  the 
saints  of  God.  Spiritual  things  must  ever  be 
spiritually  discerned,  and  spiritual  apprecia- 
tion is  by  no  means  universally  a  conspic- 
uous quality  amongst  the  higher  critics.  If 
our  faith  be  true,  then  the  Church  is  a  spir- 
itual body,  in  which  the  spiritual  faculties  of 
men  are  quickened  and  energized  by  the  Eter- 
nal Spirit  of  God,  And  to  claim  that  the  ulti- 
mate verdict  upon  spiritual  matters  lies  with 
that  spiritual  body,  is  simply  to  refer  them  to 
this  appropriate  standard  of  verification.  Can 
we  for  one  moment  set  the  verdict  of  a  few  intel- 
lectual savants  upon  the  highest  of  all  spiritual 
thinors,  the  successive  disclosures  of  the  Per- 
sonality  of  the  invisible  God,  against  the  adoring 
and  devout  apprehension  of  the  countless  mul- 
titudes of  Christendom  ?  Let  those  who  will,  so 
do  ;  but  the  issue  rests  in  no  manner  of  doubt. 
The  adoring  gaze  of  redeemed  humanity  will 
never  cease  to  rest  upon  that  Lord,  who,  age 


FA  I  r II   THE  MOTHER  OF  SOUND  CRITICISM.    39 

by  age,  is  gainiiiLir  in  increasing  measure  the 
admiration  and  unconscious  homacfe  even  of 
those  who  reject  His  claim  on  their  allegiance. 
A  Christendom  which  is  true  to  its  Lord  can 
never  fail  to  recognize  in  that  unique  religious 
development  out  of  which  He  sprang,  a  Divinely 
ordered  preparation  for  His  advent,  or  find  in 
its  fragmentary  unveilings  of  God  aught  but 
a  true  and  consistent  progress  towards  that 
supreme  goal.  In  the  interests  alike  of  faith 
and  of  a  true  philosophy,  it  will  never  handover 
to  impersonal  tendencies  the  work  of  the  great 
heroes  of  faith,  or  consent  to  blot  out  the  names 
of  the  Patriarchs  of  Israel  from  the  roll  of  the 
Saints  of  God.  It  will  insist,  and  rightly  so, 
that  whatever  conclusions  may  be  drawn  from 
literary  analysis  or  historical  research  must 
harmonize  with  these  central  facts,  which  rest 
on  foundations  as  secure  as  that  of  human 
reason  itself.  To  quote  the  words  of  one  of 
the  greatest  and  most  profound  of  German 
thinkers,  Prof.  Dorner :  "  It  cannot  be  a 
postulate  of  historical  investigation,  that  faith 
which  is  not  the  fruit  of  such  investigation 
should  a  priori  cease  and  determine.  This 
would  not  further  but  injure  inquiry."  * 

*Domer:  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  Vol.  II.,  p.  233. 


40         THE  CRITICAL  PROBLEM  IN  GENERAL. 

In  a  word,  in  the  interests  alike  of  criticism 
and  of  faith  our  attitude  of  necessary  suspense 
with  regard  to  some  of  the  Hterary  and  histor- 
ical issues  of  Old  Testament  criticism  must 
ever  be  conditioned  by  the  full  acceptance  of 
the  ereat  words  of  our  Lord,  with  all  the  conse- 

<z> 

quences  which  flow  from  them  :  "■  rf  ooDTrjpia 
en  Twv  ^lovSaiGDv  ^egtiv.'^  The  Divine  deliver- 
ance springs  out  of  the  Jews, 


II. 


THE  LITERARY  ANALYSIS 

CRITICALLY  AND  HISTORICALLY 

CONSIDERED. 


LECTURE   II. 

THE    LITERARY    ANALYSIS    CRITICALLY    AND 
HISTORICALLY    CONSIDERED. 

"  From  a  child  tJuni  hast  kiunvn  the  sacred  writ- 
ing's which  are  able  to  make  thee  wise  unto  salvation." 
— 2  Tim.  iii.  15. 

The  history  of  Old  Testament  criticism  may 
lor  the  sake  of  clearness  be  divided  into  three 
periods.  The  first  of  these  ends  with  Eichorn, 
the  father  of  the  modern  critical  methods  ;  the 
second  with  Ewald  ;  the  third  is  that  in  which 
our  own  lot  is  cast.  It  may  be  well,  in  order 
to  gain  a  broad  and  comprehensive  view  of  the 
movement  under  consideration,  very  briefly  to 
note  the  distincruishinor  characteristics  of  each 
of  these  three  periods. 

The  rise  of  Old  Testament  criticism  is  usually 
traced  to  the  questions  raised  by  the  Jewish 
Commentator,  Abenezra,  in  the  twelfth  Chris- 
tian century,  and  revived  by  Spinoza  and  others 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
These  questions  centred  round  a  small  number 


44  THE  LI  TERA  RY  A  NA  L  YSIS. 

of  passages  which  appear  to  imply  a  later 
redaction  than  the  rest  of  the  narrative  ;  such 
as,  "•And  the  Canaanite  zuas  then  in  the  land'' 
(Gen.  xii.  6)  ;  "  These  are  the  kings  that  reigned 
in  the  land  of  Edoni,  before  there  reigned  any 
king  over  the  children  of  Israel' '  (Gen.  xxxvi. 
31),  or  the  narrative  of  the  burial  of  Moses  in 
Deut.  xxxiv. 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  suppose 
that  such  obvious  matters  were  unnoticed  by 
Christian  antiquity,  or  that  they  had  escaped 
the  discernment  of  oreat  Christian  teachers. 
We  have  already  noted  St.  Jerome's  full  discus- 
sion of  the  last-named  passage  from  Deuter- 
onomy ;  and  his  surmise  that  the  words  ''to 
this  day  "  referred  to  the  time  of  the  Redaction 
under  Ezra.  Nor  was  it  merely  to  a  great 
scholar  like  St.  Jerome  that  such  matters  were 
familiar.  Turn  over  the  pages  of  St.  Augus- 
tine's "  De  Genesi  ad  litteram  "  and  you  will 
find  yourself  in  the  midst  of  questions  that  to 
our  ears  sound  strangely  modern,  yet  which  it 
is  quite  clear  from  the  treatise  were  matters 
commonly  discussed  in  the  contemporary 
North  African  Church.  The  Christians  of 
Carthage  in  the  fourth  century  were  familiar 
with    differing   views    on    such    points   as    the 


PATRISTIC  CRITICISM.  45 

meaning^  of  the  days  of  creation,  or  the  evolu- 
tion in  time  of  the  various  orders  of  created 
things  ;  the  nature  of  the  seventh  day  of  God's 
rest ;  the  connection  between  the  two  narra- 
tives of  the  creation,  and  so  on.  Or  if  we 
descend  to  a  somewhat  lower  plane  of  difficulty, 
we  shall  find  in  the  "  De  Civitate  Dei"  or  still 
earlier  in  the  Homilies  of  St.  Chrysostom,  solu- 
tions of  questions  like  that  of  the  lack  of 
information  regarding-  Cain's  wife,  his  building 
a  city,  and  so  forth.  Nor,  when  in  the  course 
of  a  discussion  we  come  across  such  golden 
sentences  as  these — "When  one  fails  to 
understand,  let  him  give  honour  to  the  Scrip- 
ture of  God,  and  himself  fear;"*  "Even 
where  the  details  of  Scripture  cannot  be 
fully  investigated  or  made  clear,  at  least 
(we  can  learn)  that  which  a  sound  faith  pre- 
scribes "f — can  we  fail  to  catch  the  spirit  of 
humility  and  reverence  in  approaching  the  shrine 
of  the  self-manifestations  of  God  which  marks 
the  devout  student  of  Holy  Scripture  in  every 
age.  Whilst  let  us  note  also,  this  spirit  is  found 
in  conjunction  with  a  sympathetic  and  cordial 

*  "  Ubi  aulem  intelligere  non  potest,  Scriplurae  Dei  det  bonorem,  sibi 
timorem. " 

f "  Si  autem  et  Scripturae  circumstantia  pertractari  et  discuti  non 
potest,  saltern  id  quod  fides  sana  prascribit." 


46  THE  LI TERA RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

recoo^nition  of  the  claims  of  all  truth,  from 
whatever  side  it  may  happen  to  come,  which 
we  have  been  too  prone  to  regard  as  a  special 
mark  of  our  own  age. 

Speaking  broadly  we  may  say  that  the  "  Re- 
cension Hypothesis  "  in  one  form  or  another, 
which  we  have  traced  back  to  the  early  Chris- 
tian Teachers,  remained  the  critical  hypothesis 
to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  one 
school,  represented  by  Fleury  and  Vitringa,  still 
maintaining  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch with  its  subsequent  Ezrahite  revision  ; 
whilst  Simon  attributed  it  to  the  work  of  the 
Prophetical  Schools  making  use  of  older  docu- 
mentary authorities.  This  latter  point — the  use 
of  older  documents — for  example  in  Genesis — 
was  conceded  also  by  the  defenders  of  the 
Mosaic  authorship. 

A  new  era  opened  with  the  proclamation  to 
the  world  in  1753  by  the  Flinch  physician, 
Astruc,  of  the  theory  that  the  Book  of  Genesis 
was  divided  into  "Sections"  or  "Memoirs" 
marked  by  the  use  of  the  two  Divine  Names 
Elohim  and  Jahveh,  which  thus  distinguished 
the  sources  employed  by  Moses  in  the  compo- 
sition of  the  Book.  The  hint  of  the  "  Docu- 
mentary Hypothesis  ''  thus  given  was  at  once 


AS'JRUC  AXD  EICIIOKN.  47 

followed  up.  Men  turned  with  avidity  from  the 
barren  controversies  as  to  the  Textual  Criti- 
cism of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and  the  date  of 
its  vowel  points,  which  had  enij^rossed  the 
thoughts  of  the  literary  world  for  more  than  a 
century  previous,  to  the  new  and  attractive 
vista  of  investigation  thus  disclosed. 

Eichorn's  "  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment," published  in  1780,  expresses  the  natural 
result.  The  eleven  Memoirs  of  Astruc  now 
become  two  original  documents,  the  I'^lohistic 
and  Jahvistic  sources  respectively,  upon  which 
Moses  drew  in  the  composition  of  Genesis. 
The  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch  also  were 
the  result  of  the  combination  of  Mosaic  docu- 
ments ;  the  Redaction  dating  from  the  Mosaic 
age,  but  with  later  tjlosses  or  insertions.  Thus 
the  science  which  Eichorn  himself  named  "  The 
Higher  Criticism  "  was  more  than  a  century 
ago  started  on  its  way  ;  and  the  main  divisions 
of  the  present  literary  analysis,  so  far  as  the 
book  of  Genesis  at  least  is  concerned,  outlined 
to  the  world.  In  the  closing  years  of  the  cen- 
tury Ilgen  discovered  a  third  document,  now 
called  the  "Second  Elohist"  in  Genesis;  but 
the  hypothesis  was  forgotten  until  revised  by 
Hupfeld    some     thirty    or    forty    years    since. 


48  THE  LI TERA RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

From  that  time  It  has  become  a  recognized  part 
of  the  critical  position.  Thus  before  the  pres- 
ent century  had  opened,  P,  J,  and  E,  as  docu- 
mentary sources  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  were 
already  separated  in  substantially  their  present 
divisions. 

The  "  Fragmentary  Hypothesis  "  of  Geddes, 
which  unsuccessfully  disputed  the  ground  for  a 
time  at  the  close  of  the  century,  requires  but  a 
cursory  mention.  It  was  soon  felt  that  what- 
ever the  literary  design  of  the  Pentateuch,  it 
was  at  any  rate  far  more  than  a  chance  collec- 
tion of  fragments  of  early  date  loosely  strung 
together  in  a  subsequent  age.  Thus  the 
"  Fragmentary  Hypothesis,"  as  it  is  called,  soon 
disappears  from  view  ;  although  the  latest  disin- 
tegrating results  of  criticism  seem  to  come 
very  near  to  its  revival  in  another  form.  Such 
language  as  the  following  from  Prof.  Sanday's 
recent  "  Bampton  Lectures"*  describes  a  new 
"  Fragmentary  Hypothesis  "  almost  as  destruc- 
tive of  the  real  unity  of  the  Books  as  the 
earlier  and  discredited  one.  Thus  he  tells  of 
"copies"  "passing  often  from  hand  to  hand 
and  enriched  on  the  way  by  insertions  and  an- 
notations ;  "  of  the  "layers  of  gradual  accretion 

*  Bampton  Lectures  for  1S94.     Pages  158-160. 


THE  FRA GMEN TA RV  IIYPOI UK S/S. 


49 


which  have  gone  to  make  the  books  which  we 
now  possess  what  they  are  ; ''  or  depicts  to  us, 
how,  when  "one  hand  laid  down  the  pen, 
another,  and  in  most  cases  a  kindly  and  a 
friendly  hand  took  it  up,  each  working  after  a 
manner  which  had  become  traditional."  It 
may  be  doubted,  however,  whether  this  expla- 
nation of  the  Old  Testament  Historical  Books 
will  have  any  better  success  in  satisfying  the 
mind  of  the  twentieth  century,  than  attended 
the  theories  of  Geddes  in  the  early  years  of  the 
nineteenth. 

Before  entering  upon  the  second  period  with 
the  work  of  De  AVette,  from  whom  the  "  Frag- 
mentary Hypothesis"  received  its  fmal  condem- 
nation, and  noticinor  the  new  turn  of  thinirs 
which  grew  out  of  his  strong  protest  for  the 
unity  of  plan  of  the  Books,  it  may  be  well  to 
cast  a  glance  backward  at  the  position  already 
reached. 

Eichorn  has  been  called  by  a  recent  English 
writer  of  the  critical  school  "a  dry  German 
rationalist."  This  appears  a  somewhat  un- 
grateful description  of  the  father  of  the  Higher 
criticism  on  the  part  of  one  of  its  advanced 
disciples.  But  granting  that  the  epithet  "  dry  " 
is  hardly  merited  by  a  writer  who  possessed 


50  THE  LITER  A  R  Y  ANAL  YSIS. 

undoubtedly  much  literary  insight  and  power 
of  historical  discernment,  still  the  fact  remains 
that  Eichorn  was  a  thorough-going  Rationalist 
of  the  eighteenth-century  type,  and  that  the  task 
which  he  set  before  himself  was  to  account  for 
the  facts  of  the  Pentateuch,  whilst  explaining 
away  its  supernatural  side.  Thus,  to  distin- 
guish between  the  different  aspects  of  Divine 
Revelation  implied  in  the  two  Names  of  God, 
was  a  matter  of  but  little  moment  in  his  eyes. 
The  Names  served  as  convenient  sign-posts  to 
mark  off  the  hand  of  one  writer  from  that  of 
another,  and  this  was  enough. 

This  tendency  to  ignore  the  meaning  or 
origin  of  the  Names  themselves  (whilst  using 
them  as  aids  to  an  artificial  division) ,  which  was 
so  natural  from  the  standpoint  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  Rationalists,  seems  to  have  survived 
largely  down  to  the  present  day. 

Canon  Driver,  for  instance,  tells  us  of  the 
preference  of  P  for  the  Name  Elohim  ;  but 
he  gives  no  explanation  of  the  phenomenon.* 
J,  the  Jahvistic  source,  we  are  informed, 
emanated  from  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  and  E 

*  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament.  "  For  such 
a  variation  in  similar  and  consecutive  chapters  no  plausible  explanation 
can  be  assigned  except  diversity  of  authorship."     p.  il. 


THE  DIVINE  NAMES.  5 1 

from  Northern  Israel,*  for  the  not  very  conclu- 
sive reason  apparently  that  E  makes  the  patri- 
archs worship  at  the  sacred  shrine  of  Northern 
Israel,  whilst  "J  displays  a  large  hearted  inter- 
est in   the   myths   and  sacred   places   both   of 
Israel  and  Judah."  f    Or,  as  Mr.  Addis  puts  it— 
'<  His   (the  Elohist's)   stories  of  the  patriarchs 
centre  round  the  shrines  and  sacred  places  of 
Northern    Israel."     "Hence,"    continues    Mr. 
Addis,   "though  there  is  much  dispute  about 
the  place  in  which  the  Jahvist  wrote,  there  is 
a  general  consensus  of  critics  that  the  Elohist 
belonged  to  the  Northern  Kingdom  "  J— verily, 
a  cogent  argument,  which  needs  to  be  stated 
only  to  produce  conviction  ! !     So  far  as  I  know, 
no  one  attempts  to  explain  why  the  Northern 
writer  should  habitually  use  the  name  Elohim, 
and    the    Southern,   Jahveh.     M.    Renan,   in- 
deed, propounds   a  theory  which   is   clear  cut 
and  simple.     According  to  him,  Elohim  is  the 
God  of  the  Patriarchal   period,  and  Jahveh  the 

*  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  115. 

t Canon  Driver  admits  that  "the  grounds  alleged  may  seem  to  be 

slight  in  themselves,  but  in  the  absence   of  stronger  grounds  on  the 

other  side,  they   make  it   at  least  relatively   probable   that   E   and   J 

belonged    to    the    northern    and     souihcni    kingdoms    respectively." 

p.  116. 

\  Addis,  Documents  of  the  Hexateuch,  Introduction,  p.  55. 


5  2  THE  LI  TEE  A  RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

national  deity  of  later  times.'"  From  all  which 
we  should  conclude  that  the  two  Elohistic  doc- 
uments P  and  E  (in  Genesis)  have  repro- 
duced the  history  of  the  Patriarchal  period  in 
its  contemporary  dress,  and  that  J,  in  which 
the  later  name  of  God  is  used,  represents  the 
subsequent  Redaction.  Yet  nothing  could  be 
more  at  variance  than  this  with  present  critical 
conclusions. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  if  the  choice  of 
the  Divine  Names  in  the  two  documents  can  be 
explained  neither  from  their  date,  nor  the  local- 
ity in  which  they  took  their  rise,  it  must 
depend  either  upon  Theological  considerations 
involved  in  the  Names  themselves,  or  must  be 
dismissed  as  purely  arbitrary.  The  latter 
alternative  appears  to  be  generally  adopted  by 
the  critics  ;  and  it  is  therefore  impossible  to 
avoid  attaching  the  idea  of  a  certain  artificiality 
to  a  division  which  is  thus  made.  Then,  when 
the  documents  have  been  ascertained  by  this 
means,  the  guide  who  first  pointed  out  the  way 
is  comparatively  ignored,  and  the  burden  of 
proof,  so  far  as  the  division  is  concerned,  laid 

*"  Notre  opinion  est  que  I'Elohisme  patriarchal  doit  etre  conpu 
comme  anterieur  et  superieur  au  Jahveisme."  Renan,  Histoire  du 
Peuple  d'  Israel,  vol.  i.  p.  65. 


ARBITRARY  USE  OF  THE  NAMES.  53 

Upon    independent    differences    of    style    and 
vocabulary.     Yet,  as  every  one  knows,  the  ar- 
gument from   such   differences  is   proverbially 
uncertain.     Moreover,  there  are    not  wanting 
passages  in  which  it  is  difficult  to  see  any  rea- 
son for  the  analysis  other  than  the  use  of  the 
Divine  Names  themselves.     (Compare  for  ex- 
ample. Gen.  x.xix  31— xxx  24,  the  narrative  of 
the  birth  of  Jacob's  children.)     When  we  bear 
in  mind  that  the  change  from  one  Divine  Name 
to  the  other  occurs  in  exacdy  the  same  way  in 
other  parts  of  the    Bible,   and  yet,    has  never 
been  held  in  those  sections  to  indicate  any  dif- 
ference of  authorship  ;   (take  the  19th  Psalm  as 
a  familiar  example)  and  the  further  fact  that  in 
a  large  number  of  cases  the  choice  of  Name  is 
without   doubt    made    advisedly  in  accordance 
with  the  subject  matter  :   (e.  g.,  in  conversation 
with  a  non-Israelite,   Elohim  is  used,   not  Jah- 
veh),  it  would  certainly  be  more  convincing  if 
the  occurrence  of  the   Names  in    the   several 
documents  were  not  so  purely  arbitrary.     Un- 
der these  circumstances,   too,  there  seems  no 
necessity  for  endeavoring  to  explain  the  occur- 
rence of  the  wrong  Name  of  God  in  certain 
places  in   P  and    E:    tw^ice   in    P,    xvii    i    and 
xxi   I^    and  four  times  in  E,  once  in  a  com- 


5 4  THE  LI TERA RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

pound  (n'''nDn)  in  xxii  2  and  absolutely  in  xxii 
II  and  xxii  14  (twice).  It  seems  unnecessary, 
I  say,  to  attempt  with  Canon  Driver  to  account 
for  this  as  being  the  work  of  the  "compiler" 
or  "  even  a  scribe,"  who  subsequently  made 
the  substitution  "  under  the  influence  of  the 
usage  of  the  verses  preceding.  "  '"^  If  the  only 
explanation  that  can  be  given  of  the  use  of  the 
Sacred  Names  in  J  on  the  one  side  and  in  P 
and  E  on  the  other,  is  the  simple  one  that  so 
it  is,  it  becomes  hard  to  see  why  the  same 
reason  should  not  be  adequate  to  explain  the 
disregard  of  the  use  in  these  instances,  or,  in 
fact,  any  other  possible  phenomenon.  The 
truth  is,  that  this  arbitrary  division  of  the  Names 
of  God  between  different  documents  is  a  leor- 
acy  of  the  Rationalistic  origin  of  the  literary 
analysis,  and  constitutes  an  a  priori  difficulty 
of  some  weight  against  a  full  acceptance  of  its 
accuracy. 

But  to  return  to  the  history  of  the  criti- 
cal movement  and  trace  the  second  period  of 
its  development.  The  work  of  Astruc  and 
Eichorn  was  carried  still  further  by  De  Wette. 
De  Wette  was  the  first  to  place  the  composi- 
tion of  Deuteronomy,  or  rather  of  the  "  kernel  " 

*  Introduction,  p.  20. 


DE   IVETTE.  55 

of  Deuteronomy,  in  the  days  of  Josiah.     I  le  also 
made  a  vigorous  onslaught  upon  the  historical 
character  and  fidelity  of  the   Books  of  Chron- 
icles, which  he  regards  as  transformed  in   the 
Levitical  interest  and  holds  much  of  its  sources 
to    be     entirely    legendary    and    unhistorical. 
These  points  have,  with  more  or  less  modifica- 
tion, remained   important   bases  of  the  critical 
position  down  to  the  present  day.     It  is  diffi- 
cult to  avoid  associating  them  at  least  in  their 
origin  with  De  Wette's  own  personal  history, 
with    his    loss    of    faith   in    the    supernatural 
through  the  influence  of  the  great  Rationalist 
Paulus,  which  was  followed  at  length  by  his  re- 
covery of    religion    through    intercourse  with 
Fries  and  Schleiermacher ;   with  both  of  whom 
religion    was    rather    a    matter    of    the    heart 
than  of  the   head,   and   to  whom  all   religious 
feeling  must  be  true,  even  though  its  intellect- 
ual   expression    might    be    false.      Moreover, 
Schleiermacher,    who   was   De  Wette's    sheet- 
anchor   in   religious  matters,  attached  litde  or 
no  value  to  Judaism  as  the  precursor  of  Chris- 
tianity.    It    seems    probable    that   De   Wette 
would  at  least  have  modified  some  of  his  posi- 
tions  (which  even  Canon  Cheyne  admits  to  be 
too   extreme),    had    he   possessed   a  less  one- 


5 6  THE  LI TERA RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

sided  religious  adviser.  Very  pathetic  are 
the  words  in  which  De  Wette  sums  up  the  re- 
sult of  his  life-work,  confessing  the  failure  of 
its  results  to  satisfy  the  ideals  of  a  sincere  high- 
minded  soul.  "I  have  sown  the  seed,"  he 
says,  "but  where  is  the  harvest  now  ripening  ? 
I  lived  in  a  troubled  time,  the  union  of  believ- 
ers was  broken.  I  mixed  with  the  struggle, 
but  it  was  in  vain.  I  have  not  succeeded  in 
makine  it  cease,"  *  A  strikinor  illustration,  I 
would  venture  to  assert,  of  the  inevitable  fail- 
ure of  Rationalistic  Pietism  in  all  agres  to  meet 
the  spiritual  needs  of  men. 

De  Wette's  strong  condemnation  of  the 
"Fragmentary  Hypothesis"  prepared  the  way 
for  the  work  of  Bleek  and  Ewald ;  who,  to 
account  for  the  unity  of  Genesis,  put  forth 
what  is  known  as  the  "  Supplementary  Hy- 
pothesis." According  to  this  view,  the  second 
of  Eichorn's  two  documents  (called  by  these 
critics  JE)  occupies  a  position  like  that  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  It  was  written  expressly  with 
the  view  of  supplementing  the  omissions  of  the 
previous  account.  Thus,  the  original  Elohist 
was  supplemented  by  the  later  and  more  de- 

*  Lichtenburg,  History  of  German  Theology  in  the  19th  century, 
P-  445- 


BLEKK  AXD  EWALD. 


57 


tailed  Jahvistic  writing-.  The  division  adopted  by 
Ewald  is  the  same  in  principle,  although  it  ulti- 
mately became  more  complex.  He,  too,  engrafts 
upon  his  Elohistic  "  IJook  of  Origins,"  which 
he  says  was  compiled  from  ancient  sources  in 
the  Solomonic  period,  successive  supplementary 
accounts  J  and  1'^.  luvald  put  back  the  date 
of  the  composition  of  Deuteronomy  from  the 
reign  of  Josiah  to  that  of  Manasseh,  and  postu- 
lated two  redactors  ;  one,  who  combined  P,  J, 
and  E,  and  a  final  redactor  who  made  some 
further  additions  and  brought  the  whole  to  its 
present  state. 

The  complexity  of  Ewald's  analysis  w^as  soon 
felt  to  detract  from  its  value,  although  modern 
scholars  have  gone  far  ahead  of  him  in  this  re- 
spect. l)Ut  his  deep  sense  of  God,  his  unfal- 
tering reverence  for  the  religion  of  Israel  as  a 
unique  manifestation  of  God  to  the  world, 
coupled  with  his  keen  sympathetic  Insight,  will 
always  maintain  for  him  a  position  of  the  first 
rank  amongst  German  critical  scholars.  In  his 
true  reverence,  as  well  as  his  fondness  for 
broad  abstract  impersonal  conceptions,  Hein- 
rich  Ewald  was  cast  in  much  the  same  mould 
as  our  own  brederick  Denison  Maurice.  We 
cannot  fail  to  trace  the  spirit  of  Maurice  in  the 


5 8  THE  LI TERA RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

vivid  portraiture  which  Canon  Cheyne  has  pre- 
served of  the  great  German  teacher  pointing 
two  EnMish  visitors  to  the  Greek  Testament 
with  the  remark,  "In  this  Httle  book  is  con- 
tained all  the  wisdom  of  the  world  :  "  *  or,  in 
his  indignant  protest  against  the  "so-called 
criticism"  "which  has  given  up  Moses  and  so 
much  that  is  excellent  besides,"  and  which 
"  leads  on  directly  to  the  contemptuous  rejec- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament,  if  not  of  the  New."  ■\ 
That  Ewald's  faith  was  less  complete  than 
Maurice's  in  some  important  particulars,  is 
probably  due  rather  to  his  less  fortunate  en- 
vironment, cut  off  as  he  was  from  the  organic 
unity  of  the  Catholic  Church,  than  to  any 
essential  difference  of  spirit. 

Schrader,  in  1869,  put  forth  Ewald's  analysis 
in  a  simpler  and  more  attractive  form  by  dispens- 
ing with  the  two  redactors.  The  Jahvist  writ- 
ing in  N.  Israel  in  the  time  of  Jeroboam  II. 
becomes  (according  to  Schrader)  at  once  the 
redactor  and  the  supplementer  of  J,  E,  and  P, 
each  of  which  had  used  earlier  sources.  The 
Deuteronomist  is  also  the  final  redactor,  who 
both  wrote  that  book  and  added  it  to  the  rest. 

*  Cheyne,  Founders  of  Old  Testament  Criticism,  p.  115. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  107. 


THE  OLDER  CRITICISM  AND  THE  NEW.        59 

Schrader  is  now  better  known  for  his  later 
work  on  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  as  illustra- 
tive of  the  Old  Testament  history  than  for  his 
directly  critical  hypotheses. 

So  far,  then,  as  we  have  yet  gone  (with  the 
exception  of  De  Wette  and  allowing  for  the 
Rationalistic  standpoint  of  Eichorn,)  the  path 
of  criticism  has  kept  true  to  the  main  position 
held  by  Astruc  at  the  first.  It  has  aimed  at 
reconciling-  the  critical  analysis  with  the  histor- 
ical trustworthiness  of  the  dissected  records, 
and  has  postulated  in  these  throughout  the  use 
of  earlier  materials.  IMoreover,  it  has  uni- 
formly assigned  priority  of  date  to  the  less 
graphic  and  more  formal  Elohistic  documents, 
and  placed  later  in  time  the  pictorial  and  flow- 
ing supplement  of  the  Jahvist. 

The  time  was  now  at  hand  when  both  these 
positions  were  to  be  completely  abandoned. 
The  Elohistic  document  was  henceforth  to  be 
dethroned  from  its  position  of  superior  an- 
tiquity and  historical  pre-eminence,  and  to  be 
relegated  instead  to  an  origin  of  unconscious 
mythical  idealization,  or,  as  the  more  thorough- 
going exponents  of  the  new  theory  would  not 
hesitate  to  say,  of  conscious  and  fraudulent  in- 
vention.    The  new    Pentatcuchal    controversy 


6o  THE  LITERAR  Y  ANAL  YSIS. 

begins.  Its  first  postulate  is  the  complete 
reversal  of  the  main  results  of  the  older  criti- 
cism which  gave  it  birth. 

The  first  note  of  the  coming  storm  was  given 
by  Hupfeld,  who,  in  re-discovering  Ilgen's  for- 
gotten second  Elohistic  document,  had  brought 
forward  assumed  antagonisms  between  the 
two  narrators,  similar  to  those  so  much  in 
voo-ue  at  the  time  in  the  current  criticisms  of 
the  New  Testament  records.  The  immediate 
object  of  Hupfeld  was  to  show  the  untenable- 
nessofthe  "  Supplemental  Hypothesis."  But 
his  application  of  the  Tubingen  methods  to  the 
Old  Testament  was  soon  to  be  made  on  a  far 
wider  scale  and  with  correspondingly  startling 
results. 

The  "  Development  Hypothesis,"  as  it  is 
called,  has  reached  its  full  form  under  the 
hands  of  Wellhausen  and  Kuenen,  who  worked 
out  in  detail  and  with  great  power  the  positions 
of  Graf  and  Reuss.  But  the  whole  theory  can 
rightly  be  understood  only  when  it  takes  its 
place,  in  company  with  the  New  Testament 
criticism  of  Baur  and  Strauss,  as  an  ultimate  re- 
sult of  the  Hegelian  Philosophy.  As  Principal 
Fairbairn  truly  says :  "In  Germany  every 
speculation  has    its    corresponding  theological 


rilK  DE  VEL  or  MEN  T  HYPO  THESIS.  6 1 

tendency  and  crisis,"  '^'  and  the  remark  holds 
good  in  the  present  instance.  In  fact  the 
same  year,  1835,  which  saw  the  pubHcation  of 
Baur's  "  Die  Christliche  Gnosis,"  and  of  the 
original  edition  of  the  "  Leben  Jesu"  of 
Strauss,  was  marked  by  the  issue  of  Vatke's 
"  Biblische  Theologie,"  in  which,  avowedly 
from  the  Hegelian  standpoint,  he  contended 
that  the  order  of  development  of  the  Israelitish 
Religion  had  been  wrongly  apprehended,  and 
that  henceforth  Prophetism  and  Mosaism  must 
change  places.  A  similar  position  with  regard 
to  the  Sacrificial  and  Priestly  legislation  of  the 
Pentateuch  had  been  reached  almost  simul- 
taneously by  Reuss  ;  as  he  claims  intuitively, 
but  the  intuition  was  probably  conditioned  by 
the  prevailing  philosophy. 

It  is  true  that  the  strong  currents  of  parallel 
thought  which  we  have  thus  traced  back  to  a 
common  date  and  origin,  were  to  run  a  strangely 
different  course  in  the  domains  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  criticism  respectively.  The 
decades  which  witnessed  the  rapid  develop- 
ment of  the  school  of  Baur  in  its  reconstruction 
of  the  New  Testament  history,  were  not  those 
in  which  the  "Tendency  Hypothesis  "  was  des- 

*  Fairbairn  :  Christ  in  Modem  Theology,  p.  205. 


62  THE  LITERAR  V  AiVAL  YSIS. 

tined  to  achieve  its  triumphs  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment field.  For  a  time  it  seemed  as  though 
the  theory  in  its  Old  Testament  application 
was  still-born.  Vatke  retracted  his  position, 
and  for  long  decades  the  school  of  Bleek  and 
Ewald  held  the  field  successfully  against  all 
comers.  Strangely  enough  in  the  case  of 
movements  so  closely  connected  in  origin  and 
date,  the  period  of  sterility  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment application  of  the  theory  was  coincident 
with  that  of  full  growth  and  maturity  in  the 
similar  treatment  of  the  New  Testament ; 
whilst  the  rapid  decadence  of  the  Tubingen 
theories  was  quickly  followed  by  the  resuscita- 
tion of  the  similar  method  in  the  sphere  of  the 
Old  Testament,  "  Paulinismus  "  and  "  Petrin- 
ismus,"  "  Particularismus  "  and  "  Universalis- 
mus "  with  their  corresponding  developments 
of  antithesis  and  subsequent  synthesis  had 
had  their  brief  day.  The  unexpected  discovery 
of  piece  after  piece  of  Sub-Apostolic  literature 
had  "planted  one  nail  after  another  in  the 
coffin  of  the  Tubingen  theory ''  as  soon  as 
their  full  consequences  were  discovered.  In 
this  work  of  inestimable  importance,  the  two 
great  Cambridge  scholars,  Westcott  and  Light- 
foot,   deservedly  took  the  first  place.     Hardly 


THE  NEW  TOiUXGEX   TJIEOKIES.  63 

had  Dr.  Lijjhtfoot  concludctl  that  famous  scries 
of  articles  '='  which  forever  destroyed  the  hold 
upon  England  of  the  Tubingen  attack  by  his 
masterly  demolition  of  the  book  known  as 
"Supernatural  Religion,"  when  the  publication 
of  Wellhausen's  "  Prolegomena  to  the  History 
of  Israel  "  in  1878,  began  an  attack  in  force  of 
the  old  foes  upon  a  new  part  of  Divine  Revela- 
tion. 

The  discredited  antagonism  between  Petrine 
and  Pauline  parties  was  again  reproduced  in  an 
assumed  struggle  between  the  supporters  of 
the  "high  places"  on  the  one  side  and  of  the 
"  central  sanctuary "  on  the  other.  A  vivid 
picture  was  drawn  of  the  Levites  generally 
who  ministered  at  the  country  sanctuaries, 
engaging  in  unequal  conflict  with  the  sons  of 
Aaron  who  served  at  the  Royal  shrine  at  Jeru- 
salem, and  soon  sharing  the  fate  of  the  van- 
quished. Once  again  we  have  antagonistic 
tendency  writings,  Deuteronomy  and  P  on  the 
one  side,  J  and  E  on  the  other ;  with  the 
later  conciliatory  document  in  the  Chronicles 
which,  it  was  asserted,  (just  as  had  been  said  of 

■"■Originally  written  for  the  Contemporary  Review,  but  since  repub- 
lished under  the  title  of  "  Essays  on  Supernatural  Religion."  Mac- 
millan,  1SS9. 


64  THE  LI  TERA  K  Y  A  NA  L  YSIS. 

the  Acts  in  the  New  Testament)  swept  away- 
all  trace  of  the  struggle  by  a  false  appeal  to 
antiquity. 

The  resuscitation  was  as  complete  as  that  of 
the  dead  mariners  in  the  sweet  fancy  of  the 
poet,  who  tells  how  : 

"  They  groaned,  they  stirred,  they  all  uprose 
Nor  spake,  nor  moved  their  eyes. 
It  had  been  strange,  even  in  a  dream 
To  see  those  dead  men  rise. 

**  The  helmsman  steered,  the  ship  moved  on 
Yet  never  a  breeze  up-blew. 
The  mariners  all  'gan  work  the  ropes 
Where  they  were  wont  to  do." 

Of  course,  it  is  not  pretended  that  all  this 
decides  the  matter.  The  evidence  is  quite 
distinct  in  the  two  cases,  and  so  must  its  ex- 
amination be  likewise.  The  arguments  of 
Wellhausen  are  based  upon  a  new  set  of  phe- 
nomena, which  must  receive  as  full  and  search- 
ing examination  as  was  oriven  to  those  of  the 
Apostolic  history.  The  theory  is,  I  repeat, 
entitled  to,  and  it  must  receive,  the  same  ex- 
haustive investigation  that  was  given  to  its 
other  self.  It  cannot  be  laughed  out  of  court 
as  if  the  issue  in  its  first  essay  were  decisive  in 


HISTOR  y  REPEA  TING  ITSELF.  65 

the  new  encounter.  But  neither  on  the  other 
liand  can  it  shake  itself  free  from  the  just 
stitji'ma  of  that  first  crushini^  overthrow.  These 
assumed  antagonisms  lack  the  virility  and  ease 
of  their  New  Testament  counterparts.  They 
Ilit  luieasily  across  the  stage  as  if  half  conscious 
that  they  are  but  the  ghosts  of  their  former 
selves.  Once  again  history  seems  to  be  re- 
peating itself.  The  successive  discoveries  of 
the  Didache,  of  S.  Clement's  Epistle  in  its  full 
form,  and  of  the  Diatessaron,  with  the  ilood  of 
light  they  cast  upon  the  actual  facts  of  sub- 
apostolic  history,  are  being  paralleled,  in  the 
all-wise  Providence  of  God,  by  the  marvellous 
unveiling  of  the  contemporary  history  of  the 
Old  Testament  period  which  is  now  going  on 
beneath  our  eyes.  Nor  can  we  doubt  that  as  in 
the  case  of  the  New  Testament  so  also  here, 
the  ultimate  result  will  be  to  awaken  in  the 
Church  a  more  intelligent  and  living  apprecia- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation,  as  with 
quickened  eyes  and  mind  we  earn  again  the 
lessons  of  its  wondrous  history.  So  may  the 
sequel  of  the  sweet  lay  of  Coleridge  fmd  its 
analoofue  here  also  : 

'  Twas  not  those  souls  that  fled  in  pain, 
Which  to  their  corses  came  again, 


.  66  THE  LITERAR  V  ANAL  YSIS. 

But  a  troop  of  spirits  blest. 

For  when  it  dawned,  they  dropped  their  arms 

And  clustered  round  the  mast, 

Sweet  sounds  rose  slowly  through  their  mouths 

And  from  their  bodies  passed." 

We  may  note  here  that  already  the  theory 
in  its  first  clear  cut  outlines  shows  sig-ns  of 
disintegration.  Dillmann  still  in  the  main 
adheres  to  the  position  of  his  great  teacher 
Ewald,  and  assigns  to  P  a  pre-Exilic  date. 
Schrader,  from  Archaeological  grounds,  arrives 
independently  at  the  same  conclusion.  Schultz, 
who  assigns  J  to  the  reign  of  Solomon  and  E 
to  the  early  years  of  the  Northern  Kingdom, 
makes  P  to  be  the  work  of  a  priest  in  the 
Exilic  period  itself.  The  most  recent  critical 
school,  represented  in  Germany  by  Strack  and 
Kittell,  in  England  by  Prof  Driver,  as  has 
been  already  noticed,  regard  P  as  in  the  main 
a  codification  of  existent  pre-Exilic  and  ancient 
usaore,  with  its  roots,  at  least,  stretching  back 
to  the  time  of  Moses  ;  so  that  the  unique  por- 
tions of  P  alone  belong  to  the  Exilic  or  post- 
Exilic  period  and  even  so  represent  a  develop- 
ment growing  naturally  and  vitally  out  of  long 
existent  priestly  usage.  Unquestionably,  as 
was  mentioned  in  the  first  Lecture,  the  com- 


d/s/.\ti-:ga\4  t/ojv  begun. 


67 


plex  nature  of  the  legislation  of  P  is  bein^^^ 
increasingly  conceded  by  recent  criticism  ;  and 
the  issue  is  thus  narrowed  down  to  the  date  of 
the  full  completion  and  development  of  Israel's 
institutions  under  the  guidance  of  God,  not  to 
that  of  the  origination  of  the  institutions  them- 
selves. Critics  like  Prof.  13rio;irs  acknowledofe 
that  "  Law  and  Prophecy  are  not  two  distinct 
and  separate  modes  of  revelation,  but  the 
same"  ;*  a  position  clearly  irreconcilable  with 
the  fundamental  thesis  of  W'ellhausen,  as 
stated  in  his  Prolegomena,  that  "  there  is 
between  them  all  the  difference  that  separates 
two  wholly  distinct  worlds."  f  There  is  no 
mistaking  the  fundamental  position  implied  in 
the  words  with  which  Prof.  Briggs  closes  his 
recent  volume  on  "The  Higher  Criticism  of 
the  Hexateuch,"  as  follows  : 

**  The  deeper  study  of  the  unity  and  variety  of  the 
Hexateuchal  narratives  and  laws,  as  we  defend  their 
historicity  against  Reuss,  Kuenen,  and  Wellhausen, 
and  advance  in  the  apprehension  of  their  sublime 
harmony,  will  gratify  and  enrich  the  theology  of  our 
day,  just  as  the  deeper  study  of  the  unity  and  vari- 
ety of  the  Gospels in  the 

defence  of  them  against  Strauss,  Renan,  and  Baur, 

*  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch,  p.  161. 
f  Prolegomena,  Introduction,  p.  3. 


6  8  THE  LI  TERA  RY  A  NA  L  YSIS. 

has  been  an  unspeakable  blessing  in  the  past  gen- 
eration." * 

So  much  time  has  been  spent  on  this  histor- 
ical resume  that  but  httle  opportunity  remains 
for  anything  Hke  an  independent  examination 
of  the  critical  positions  themselves.  Much  of 
this  must  therefore  be  postponed  to  a  later 
lecture.  Still,  the  time  will  not  have  been  ill 
spent,  if  I  have  been  able  to  show  the  causes 
which  historically  underlie  the  chief  critical 
positions,  and  the  intimate  connection  which 
exists  between  the  religious  and  philosophical 
environment  which  they  reflect  and  those  main 
conclusions  themselves  :  and  then  flowing  out 
of  the  connection  thus  established,  the  conse- 
quent essential  link  between  the  Old  Testa- 
ment problems  and  the  New  ;  between  the 
issues  which  still  hano-  in  the  balance  and  those 
other  main  questions  concerning  the  New  Tes- 
tament, which,  speaking  generally,  may  now 
be  taken  as  finally  and  certainly  determined. 
If  I  mistake  not,  the  battle  is  half-won  when 
the  position  and  strength  of  the  opposing 
forces  are  thus  accurately  gauged. 

Before  bringing  this  lecture  to  a  close,  how- 
ever, I  may  perhaps  venture  on   a  short  criti- 

*  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch,  p.  162. 


THE  AIMS  OF  THE  REDACTOR.  69 

cism  of  two  fiindciincntal  points.  One  affecting 
the  literary  analysis  in  general,  and  the  other 
the  "Tendency"  theory  of  the  W'ellhausen 
school. 

First,  then,  as  to  the  artificial  character  of 
much  of  the  analysis  itself.  V<i\\  people,  I 
think,  who  will  give  the  time  to  mark  out  for 
themselves  in  a  Hebrew  or  for  that  matter  in 
an  English  Bible,  the  divisions  of  the  Hexa- 
teuch  (as  given  for  example,  in  Canon  Driver's 
Introduction),  will  not  experience  a  strong, 
a  prioi'i  repugnance  to  a  dissection  often  so 
minute,  and  in  many  cases  apparently  so  ar- 
bitrary. It  is  not  merely  that  narratives,  or 
even  verses,  are  cut  up  piecemeal  fashion  in  de- 
fiance of  what  seems  the  closest  connection, 
and  the  fragments  distributed  in  their  mutilated 
state  between  the  several  documentary 
sources  ;  but  that  (even  if  we  postulate  the 
division)  it  is  so  difficult  to  premise  the  inten- 
tion of  the  Redactor  in  selecting  such  disjointed 
fragments  from  his  original  sources.  The  pro- 
cess of  dissection  is  not  usually  attractive  to 
persons  of  keen  sensibilities,  whether  literary 
or  otherwise,  but  the  repugnance  may  entirely 
disappear  if  the  purpose  to  be  attained  is  rea- 
sonably   clear.     Where  no   adequate   purpose 


70  THE  LI  TERA  RY  A  NA  L  YSIS. 

can    be    seen    the    repugnance    is    with    most 
people  exceedingly  strong. 

Take  for  example  such  a  verse  as  Gen,  xxi, 
1 :  "  And  the  Lord  visited  Sai'ah  as  he  had 
said,  and  the  Loi^d  did  unto  Sarah  as  he  had 
spokeny  In  spite  of  the  repetition  of  the  same 
sacred  Name,  the  first  half  of  this  verse,  ''And 
the  Lord  visited  Sarah  as  he  had  said, ' '  is  as- 
signed to  J,  and  the  second,  "  A^id  the  Lord 
did  unto  Sarah  as  he  had  spoken  "  to  P.  Pre- 
sumably this  is  done,  partly  because  of  the 
duplication  of  the  same  idea  in  the  two  clauses, 
and  partly  from  the  necessity  of  finding  head- 
ings for  each  of  the  assumed  parallel  accounts 
which  follow. 

Now,  let  us  assume  that  all  this  is  correct, 
and  that  the  division  corresponds  to  the  fact. 
Then  see  what  follows.  The  Jahvistic  docu- 
ment by  hypothesis  already  contained  the 
clause,  "  And  the  Lord  visited  Sarah  as  he  had 
said.''  What  then  should  induce  any  redactor 
to  insert  in  his  own  composite  narrative  almost 
identically  the  same  thing  from  P  and  join  the 
two  clauses  thus  together  ?  Is  it  contended 
that  the  two  clauses  are  not  identical  ?  If  so, 
what  is  the  difference  between  them  ?  Had  P 
added   anything  to   the    previous    account   it 


RED  U PLICA  TIONS. 


71 


would  all  have  been  natural  enouq-h,  but,  as 
the  two  clauses  read,  the  assumed  action  of 
the  Redactor  appears  very  hard  indeed  to  un- 
derstand. Of  course,  the  critical  theory  re- 
quired the  combination  of  two  parallel  narra- 
tives, and  so,  as  noted  above,  the  verse  had  to 
be  divided  to  supply  a  heading  for  each.  The 
more  natural  explanation  would  seem  to  be 
that  we  have  simply  a  somewhat  redundant 
parallelism,  such  as  is  common  in  Hebrew  and 
other  Semitic  literature,  whether  Poetry  or 
Prose,  This  view  does  not,  however,  fall  in 
with  the  required  critical  conclusion,  and  is 
dismissed  unnoticed. 

As  instances  of  such  parallelism  take  for 
example  the  common  versicles  : 

"  O  God,  viakc  speed  to  save  11s ." 
*'  O  Lord,  make  haste  to  help  us."  * 

Or  in  prose. 

"And  no  plant  of  the  field  was  yet  in  the  earth,  and 
no  herb  of  the  field  had  yet  sprung  up."  f  From  the 
narrative  of  Creation. 

Take  another  instance.     In  Gen.  xxxi  17  18 

*  Taken  from  Ps.  Ixx.  I.  f  Genesis  ii.  5. 


72 


THE  LITERAR  Y  ANAL  YSIS. 


we    have  an  account    of  Jacob's    return   from 
Paddan-aram  as  follows : 

"  Then  Jacob  rose  2ip,  and  set  his  sons  and  his  wives 
upon  the  camels;  and  he  carried  away  all  his  cattle, 
and  all  his  substance  wJiich  lie  had  gathered ;  the 
cattle  of  his  getting,  luJiich  he  had  gathered  in 
Paddan-aram  for  to  go  to  Isaac  his  fatJicr  unto  the 
land  of  Canaan." 

This  passage  occurs  in  the  midst  of  a  long 
extract  of  40  verses  as  to  Jacob's  stratagem 
about  the  cattle  and  his  interview  thereon  with 
Laban,  all  of  which  criticism  asserts  to  have 
been  taken  from  E,  But  unfortunately,  the 
word  for  "substance"  u*13"i  and  the  geo- 
graphical term  Paddan-aram,  are  words  which 
are  uniformly  assigned  to  P.  Accordingly  the 
last  clauses  be^inninof  "  zuith  all  his  substance  " 
are  torn  away  from  the  rest  of  the  40  verses 
and  set  down  to  P's  account.  Now,  assuming 
once  more  that  this  is  correct  what  would  be 
the  object  of  the  Redactor  in  inserting  out  of 
an  assumed  parallel  narrative  from  P  this  one 
little  formal  statement?  The  one  distinguish- 
ing point  in  which,  is,  by  the  way,  assumed 
in  the  subsequent  dispute  which  arose  over 
Jacob's  theft  of  Laban's  household  gods.  Or 
again  take  Gen.  xxv  26.     In  this  narrative  of 


INSERTIONS  FROM  P.  73 

the    twin    sons    of  Isaac   we    have  the  follow- 
ing: 

'■^And  after  that  came  forth  his  brother,  and  his 
hand  had  hold  upon  Esan's  heel ;  and  his  name  was 
called  Jacob  ;  and  Isaac  was  three-score  years  old  when 
she  bore  them.     And  the  boys  greiv,"  and  so  on. 

What  would  seem  more  natural  than  this 
note  of  time  giving  the  father's  age  at  the 
birth  of  his  sons  ?  ^^et  because  it  is  a  critical 
postulate  that  dates  belong  to  P  this  clause 
is  severed  off  as  l^'s  contribution.  As  though 
the  Jahvistic  writer  who  is  assumed  to  have 
composed  this  work  in  the  palmy  days  of 
Hebrew  literature  did  not  know  the  Hebrew 
for  "Isaac  was  60  years  old,"  or  knowing 
could  not  have  used  it.  Moreover  the  use 
of  the  Kal  rHll  for  the  Hiphil  "n^t^'.nz  which 
would  be  much  more  natural  in  P's  assumed 
narrative  seems  to  point  the  other  way.  It 
is  not  then.  I  repeat,  merely  that  the  dissec- 
tion often  seems  microscopic  and  piecemeal, 
but  that  it  is  so  difficult  to  realise  the  reverse 
process  by  which  "ex  hypothesi  "  the  narra- 
tive actually  reached  its  present  form. 

Take  another  point.  Look  at  some  of  the 
assumed  excerpts  from  the  several  documents 
in  their  mutual  relation  as  they  must  have  once 


7 4  THE  LI TERA RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

stood     in     those    original     documents     them- 
selves. 

Here  are  three  consecutive  fragments  which 
are  said  to  come  from  P  : 

'''•  And  Laban  gave  to  Rachel  his  daugJiter,  BilJiah 
his  handmaid  to  be  he?'  Jiandniaid.'"    Gen.  xxix  29. 

'■''  And  all  his  substanec  zvJtieh  he  had  gathered, 
the  cattle  of  his  getting,  tvJiicJi  he  gathered  in  Paddan- 
aram  for  to  go  to  Isaac  his  father,  iinto  the  land 
of  Canaan."     Gen.  xxxi  18. 

**  And  Jacob  came  in  peace  to  the  city  of  Shechem  ; 
zvhich  IS  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  ivhen  he  came  from 
Paddan-aram.'"     Gen.  xxxiii  18. 

It  seems  inconceivable  that  these  passages 
could  have  stood  in  close  connection  in  P's 
narrative,  and  very  difficult  to  see  how  they 
were  originally  strung  together  save  by  a 
narrative  like  that  of  Genesis  itself.  We  may 
note  also  in  passing  that  the  first  passage  is  so 
clearly  postulated  in  J's  subsequent  narrative 
(xxx  4)  as  to  make  its  insertion  from  another 
document  seem  unlikely,  whilst  the  second 
passage  has  already  been  examined  above. 
For  instance  of  similar  difficulties  of  connection 
compare  from  P. 

'■'■And  all  the  men  of  his  house,  those  born  in  the 
house,  and  those  bought  with  money  of  the  stranger, 
were  circumcised  ivith  hitn."     Gen.  xvii  27. 


CONSECUTIVE  PASSAGES.  75 

The  next  passage  from  P  is  : 

'■'■  And  it  came  to  pass,  zvhen  God  destroyed  the 
cities  of  the  Plain,  that  God  reniembered  Absalom, 
and  sent  Lot  ont  of  the  midst  of  the  overt hroiu,  when 
he  overthrew  the  cities  in  the  which  Lot  diuelt." 
Gen.  xix  29. 

Roth  the  construction  and  the  subject  matter 
make  it  very  difficult  tor  us  not  to  regard  the 
last  verse  as  the  final  summing  up  of  a  narra- 
tive like  the  existing  account  in  Genesis  ;  but 
because  of  the  Name  of  God  used  and  the  oc- 
currence of  a  word  assigned  to  P  it  is  affirmed 
to  be  taken  from  that  source.  Why  should 
the  Redactor  trouble  to  extract  from  P's  narra- 
tive this  mere  formal  recapitulation  of  what  he 
had  already  fully  described  ? 

Now  compare  passages  from  J  : 

^^  And  the  rain  was  upon  the  earth  forty  days  and 
forty  nights."    Gen.  viii2. 

"And  the  Lord  shut  him  in.  And  the  flood  was 
forty  days  upon  the  earth,"  etc.     Gen.  vii  16. 

Clearly  the  intervening  context  of  J  must 
have  contained  the  account  of  Noah's  entrance 
into  the  Ark  exactly  as  in  Genesis,  but  all  this 
is   said  to  be  taken   by  the   compiler  from  P. 


7 6  THE  LI TERA RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

Again,  take  these  passages  : 

^^  And  Jacob  went  out  from  Beersheba,  and  went 
towards  Haran."     Gen.  xxviii  ii, 

^^  And  behold  the  Lord  stood  above  it ;  (or  him) 
and  said,  I  am  the  Lord,  the  God  of  Abraham  thy 
father,  and  the  God  of  Lsaac.''     Gen.  xxviii  13. 

Clearly  some  intermediate  narrative  like  E's 
in  verses  1 1  and  12  is  necessary  if  we  here  try 
to  reconstruct  J. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  similar  exam- 
ples from  the  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch, 
perhaps  even  more  striking  than  these,  but 
time  forbids.  I  must  therefore  content  myself 
with  the  examples  already  given  and  throw 
out  this  hint  of  a  method  for  further  investiga- 
tion, of  which  some  may  possibly  care  to  avail 
themselves. 

Our  examination  of  the  literary  analysis  then 
seems  to  shut  us  up  to  one  of  two  conclusions. 
Either  P  J  and  E  were  originally  parallel 
documents  closely  resembling  each  other,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  first  three  Gospels,  or  the 
analysis  hopelessly  breaks  down.  This  anal- 
ogy of  the  Synoptist  Gospels  may  help  to  con- 
firm our  conclusion  from  an  independent  point 
of  view.  As  against  the  objections  to  a  piece- 
meal   and   microscopic   analysis    so   naturally 


PENT  A  TEUCII  AND  DIA  TESSA  RON. 


77 


raised,  at  least  on  the  first  blush  of  the  matter, 
the  critics  have  referred  triumphantly  to  the 
example  of  the  Diatessaron  of  Tatian  recently 
brought  to  light.  See,  say  they,  an  exam- 
ple of  the  very  thing  you  are  objecting  to. 
Analyze  the  Diatessaron  into  its  known  ele- 
ments as  you  have  them  in  the  Canonical  Gos- 
pels, and  you  must  treat  it  in  precisely  the 
same  fashion  as  we  have  treated  the  Book  of 
Genesis.  The  plea  is  undoubtedly  valid  up  to 
a  certain  point.  There  certainly  is  a  strik- 
ing general  resemblance  between  the  process 
of  resolving  the  Diatessaron  into  its  compo- 
nent parts,  and  that  with  which  w^e  are  famil- 
iar in  the  critical  treatment  of  the  Pentateuch. 
Of  course  this  would  not  show  that  the  Penta- 
teuch was  actually  thus  built  up,  but  it  does 
away  with  the  antecedent  improbability  of  the 
method  from  its  being  found  applicable  in  a 
parallel  case. 

In  a  par'allel  case.  Precisely.  But  then, 
mark  the  consequences  which  How  from  assum- 
ing the  Book  of  Genesis  to  be  thus  parallel  in 
its  structure  to  the  Diatessaron.  For  the  Dia- 
tessaron is  no  ordinary  compilation.  The  very 
possibility  of  forming  such  a  harmonistic  trea- 
tise depends  upon    a   certain  relationship  be- 


yS  THE  LITERARY  ANALYSIS. 

tween  its  original  sources.  Three  of  these  are 
known  to  be  strictly  parallel  to  each  other, 
and  rest  back  upon  a  large  amount  of  common 
matter  which  each  reproduces  with  almost 
verbal  accuracy.  The  fourth  source  has  ex- 
actly the  same  general  outline,  but  is  intended 
to  supplement  the  other  three.  Moreover, 
Tatian  had  a  special  object  in  view.  He 
wished  to  combine  in  one  consecutive  narrative 
all  that  the  four  sources  contain,  and  so  to 
supersede  (as  for  a  time  in  some  Churches  he 
actually  did)  the  use  of  the  four  separate  Gos- 
pels.* Now,  bearing  in  mind  the  peculiar  re- 
lationship of  his  sources,  as  well  as  the  special 
object  of  the  work,  we  do  certainly  find  in  it 
phenomena  of  most  striking  similarity  to  those 
of  the  critically  dissected  Genesis.  Let  any 
one  write  out  in  colored  ink  the  parts  of  the 
Diatessaron  which  come  from  each  Gospel, 
and  he  will  obtain  an  almost  startling  counter- 
part of  the  variegated  Pentateuch  under  sim- 
ilar treatment.  There  will  be,  for  example, 
exactly  the  same  irregularity  in  the  distribution 
of  color.  Large  sections  of  one  color  will 
alternate  with  a  succession  of  mosaics  in 
which  the  coloring  is  almost  as  complicated  as 

*See  Theodoret,  Woex.  Fab.  Comp.  i.   20. 


ORIGINAL  SOURCE  OF  P. 


79 


the  solar  spectrum.  If  we  now  proceed  to 
examine  the  two  sets  of  passages  in  which 
these  different  phenomena  occur,  we  shall  find 
that  the  long"  excerpts  of  one  color  correspond 
to  those  parts  in  which  S.  John  (we  will  say) 
preserves  sections  entirely  lacking  in  the  other 
sources  (take  the  great  discourse  in  S. 
John  vi.,  as  an  example),  whilst  the  short 
fragmentary  pieces  occur  in  the  parts  where 
the  sources  had  material  largely  common  to 
them  all,  as  in  the  narrative  of  the  miracle  of 
the  5,000,  which  introduces  the  discourse  above 
mentioned. 

Now,  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  P  in 
Genesis  is.  with  the  exception  of  larger  sections 
such  as  those  in  Genesis  i.,  v.  and  xvii.,  mainly 
composed  of  these  short  disjointed  fragments  ; 
the  analogy  of  the  Diatessaron  forces  us  to 
this  most  important  conclusion,  viz.,  that  P  in 
its  original  shape  was  a  document  for  the  most 
part  containing  the  same  material  as  J  and  E 
except  in  a  few  of  its  unique  sections.  Thus, 
if  we  find  that  P  in  the  fragments  preserved  is 
silent  about  any  point  mentioned  in  the  inter- 
mediate narrative  of  J  and  E,  so  far  from  this 
arguing  that  P  did  not  contain  this  matter 
originally,  or  was  ignorant  on  these  points,  all 


So  THE  LITERAR  V  ANAL  YSIS. 

the  evidence  constrains  us  to  the  exactly  oppo- 
site conclusion.  The  "  argument  from  silence  " 
is  as  completely  reversed  as  in  the  well-known 
case  of  the  New  Testament  notices  in  Eusebius. 
The  method  of  Bp.  Lightfoot's  famous  article 
on  the  "  Silence  of  Eusebius  "  is  exactly  applic- 
able to  the  "silence"  of  P.  In  a  word,  P's 
"  silence"  on  any  point  in  the  greater  part  of 
Genesis  is  certain  evidence  that  this  point 
formed  part  of  the  original  P  from  which  the 
fragmentary  quotations  were  subsequently 
made.  Thus  if  in  Genesis,  as  we  are  told  by 
Wellhausen,  P  speaks  of  no  altars  erected  by 
the  Patriarchs,  no  offerings  brought,  and  in 
fact  no  sacrificial  act  prior  to  the  time  of 
Moses,  while  J  and  E  do  record  these  things  ;* 
all  this  only  renders  it  practically  certain  that 
P's  account  was  just  like  that  of  J  and  E  in 
these  important  respects.  The  "silence"  of 
P  demonstrates  its  knowledge  not  its  igno- 
rance, as  certainly  as  the  "silence"  of  Euse- 
bius with  regard  to  any  particular  New 
Testament  writing,  so  far  from  telling  against 
it,  only    shows    its    acknowledged    reception. 

*  Prolegomena,  p.  54.  "  The  contrast  with  the  Priestly  code  is  ex- 
tremely striking,  for  it  is  well  known  that  the  latter  work  makes  men- 
tion of  no  sacrificial  act  prior  to  the  time  of  Moses." 


ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  REVERSED.        8  I 

The    precarioLisncss  of    the    "argument    from 
silence  "  has  of  course  often  been  pointed  out. 
The  confident  use  which   is  everywhere  made 
of  it  in  the  critical  literature  appears  to  ari^ue 
an   amount  of  daring   hardly  justifiable  under 
the  circumstances  of  the  case.     Pnit,  unless  the 
preceding  investigation    is    radically  unsound, 
it  follows   that  the  results   so  gained  are  not 
merely     precarious     but     become    absolutely  . 
worthless  and  wrong.     Whilst  upon  the  valid- 
ity of  these  results,  be  it  remembered,  practi- 
cally hangs  the  whole  "Tendency  Hypothesis." 
Not   to  dwell  further  upon   this  vital   point 
enough  has  at  any  rate  been  said  to  justify  the 
contention   that   the    question    of   the   literary 
analysis  is  very  far  indeed  from  being  closed. 
The    same    method   has  been   applied    to    the 
Homeric  writings,  where  no  theological  ques- 
tions come  in.  but  has  failed  to  produce  gen- 
eral  acquiescence   in    its    results.^'"      A    great 
Western  historian,  Bp.  Stubbs,  doubts  whether 
it  can  be  ever  applied  with  a  reasonable  amount 
of  certainty  ;  while  a  distinguished  Orientalist, 
Prof.  Sayce,  protests  that  even  if  applicable  to 
Western  histories  it  is    entirely  out  of    place 
in    reo-ard   to    ancient    Eastern    records.     The 

*See  Appendix  G. 


82  THE  LITERARY  ANALYSIS. 

"literary  tact  of  a  modern  European  "  he  holds 
to  be  "  worthless  when  it  is  exercised  on  the 
Sacred  Books  of  the  East,"  *  or  again,  he  says  : 
"  The  accuracy  of  language  and  expression 
demanded  from  the  sacred  writers  was  mathe- 
matical in  its  exactness ;  it  was  an  accuracy 
which  could  not  with  fairness  be  demanded 
from  any  ancient  writer,  more  especially  one 
whose  home  was  in  the  East."  f  We  shall 
see  directly  that  in  cases  where  the  analysis 
can  be  tested  by  comparison  with  the  cuneiform 
records,  the  result  is  distinctly  unfavorable  to 
its  accuracy.  As,  for  example,  in  the  case  of 
the  narratives  of  the  Creation  and  the  Flood. 
Even  where  it  may  be  assumed  to  rest  upon  a 
basis  of  fact,  we  have  already  shown  how 
uncertain  are  many  of  the  conclusions  which 
have  been  drawn  from  it. 

To  summarize  then  our  results  so  far. 
Whether  we  consider  the  critical  conclu- 
sions from  the  point  of  view  of  their  mutual 
divergence,  of  the  philosophical  presuppositions 
by  which  they  were  historically  conditioned,  or 
the  methods  by  which  they  are  attained ;  these 
separate  lines  of  investigation  all  seem  to  con- 

*The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  557. 
\  Ibid.,  p.  21. 


RESULTS  OF  THE  INl'ESTIGA  TIOX.  8 


J 


veree  to  one  and  the  same  result.  If,  as  a 
great  master  in  spiritual  things  has  lately  said, 
we  must  not  seek  to  "  withdraw  one  document 
which  helps  to  define  our  faith  from  the  opera- 
tions of  any  established  law  of  criticism  ; "  * 
neither  must  we  iornore  the  correlative  fact, 
not  merely  that  as  the  same  master  teaches 
"  no  historical  inquiry  can  decide  that  there  is 
no  revelation."  f  but  also  that  in  the  present 
condition  of  things  there  are  scarcely  any  im- 
portant conclusions  of  literary  criticism  applied 
to  the  Pentateuch  which  we  can  safely  take  to 
be  finally  decided,  whilst  many  of  them  are 
open  to  the  gravest  doubt.  Other  critical 
theories  again,  like  the  revolutionary  views 
which  distincjuish  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen 
from  our  best  English  scholars,  may  be  for  all 
practical  purposes  put  out  of  court. 

For  most  of  us  it  would  seem  that  the 
weighty  obligation  and  high  privilege  of  mould- 
ing the  life  and  character  of  our  generation  by 
means  of  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment must  be  discharged  under  conditions  not 
greatly  changed  from  those  in  which  a  similar 
service  was  rendered  to  men  in  the  genera- 
tions that  are  gone  ;  and  that  we  may  with  sure 

*  Westcott,  Gospel  of  Life,  p.  92.  |  Ibid. 


84  THE  LI  TERA  RY  ANAL  YSIS. 

confidence  and  reverent  diligence  follow  hum- 
bly in  the  steps  of  the  great  teachers  who  have 
preceded  us,  in  applying  to  the  needs  of  the 
flocks  committed  to  our  charge  those  same 
'■'sacred  writings  which  are  able  to  make  them 
wise  unto  salvation,''  and  to  build  them  up  a 
holy  temple  in  the  Lord!' 


III. 

THE  CREATION  AND  PARADISE. 


LECTURE   III. 

THE    CREATION    AND    PARADISE. 

For  of  Him  and  througli  Him  and  unto  Him  arc 
all  things.  To  Him  be  glory  for  ever.  Amen. — 
Rom,  xi.  36. 

For  ye  are  all  sons  of  God,  through  faith,  in  Christ 
Jesus.  .  .  .  For  ye  are  all  07ie  in  Christ  Jesus. — 
Gal.  iii.  26-28, 

A  great  master  in  theology  has  happily 
summed  up  the  office  of  the  opening  chapters 
of  Genesis  as  furnishing  a  preface  to  Holy 
Scripture  by  bringing  out  the  three  funda- 
mental conditions  which  render  all  revelation 
at  once  possible  and  necessary :  That  "  the 
world  was  made  by  God,"  and  therefore  "in 
all  its  parts  is  an  expression  of  the  will  of 
God  ; "  a  real  revelation  in  the  varying  meas- 
ure of  its  several  orders  of  His  Divine  Glory. 
"  That  man  was  made  in  the  image  of  God," 
and  is  therefore  "capable  of  holding  fellowship 
with  Him,"  and  so  susceptible  of  as  unique 
a  rational,   moral,   and    spiritual    development. 


S8  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

That  man  had  "by  self-assertion  broken  his 
riehtful  connexion  with  God,"  and  thus  "  for 
the  fulfihiient  of  his  destiny"  now  "needs  the 
help  of  God,  not  merely  for  his  growth,  but 
also  for  his  restoration."  * 

These  are  "  the  three  postulates  of  Relig- 
ion,"-|-  as  Dr.  Westcott  calls  them,  which 
underlie  the  whole  subsequent  course  of  Reve- 
lation. 

"  So  God  created  man  in  His  own  image  ^  i?i  the  image 
of  God  created  He  him  ;  male  and  female  created  He 
them:' 

These  "postulates"  are  expressed  in  lan- 
guage and  imagery  so  simple  that  even  a  child 
can  appreciate  them,  yet  are  so  deep  and  far- 
reaching  both  in  themselves  and  in  their  conse- 
quences that  they  form  a  true  "Gospel  of  Life." 

To  quote  once  again  : 

"  They  lay  down  irrevocably  the  essential  relations 
of  God,  and  man,  and  the  world.  They  go  back  to  a 
point  beyond  all  experience.  The  final  sanctions  of 
every  noble  form  of  human  activity,  the  promises 
which  illuminate  the  '  toppling  crags  of  duty,'  are 
implicitly  contained  in  them.  .  .  .  They  show 
that  the  conception  of  humanity  as  a  living  whole  is 
not  a  dream  but  a  truth.  They  show  that  the  aspira- 
tions of  man  to  God  answer  to  his  essential  constitu- 
tion   and  contain   the   pledge    of   fulfilment.     They 

*  Westcott,  Gospel  of  Life,  pages  183,  184.  j  Ibid.,  p.  199. 


THE  PRIMITIVE  GOSPEL.  89 

show  that  the  sinfulness  by  which  he  is  bound  and 
the  sins  by  which  he  is  stained  are  not  parts  of  his 
real  self,  that  they  are  intrusive  and  that  so  they  can 
be  done  away,"* 

In  a  word,  they  place  the  abiding  facts  of 
human  existence  in  their  right  "connexion  with 
an  unseen  order,"  they  form  in  themselves, 
"  rightly  apprehended,  the  primitive  Gospel  of 
the  world."  f 

AU  subsequent  revelation  is  but  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  consequences  which  already  lie 
implicitly  contained  in  that  primary  message. 
The  new  creation  of  men  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord,  what  is  it  but  the  loving  confirmation  and 
renewal  in  the  abundant  mercy  of  God  of  the 
hopes  that  lie  there  already  latent  and  in 
germ?  The  most  glorious  revelations  of  the 
Gospel,  the  office  and  work  of  our  Lord  in  re- 
lation to  humanity,  the  supernatural  powers 
and  energies  of  the  Church  inspired  by  the 
Eternal  Spirit  working  through  the  living 
Word  and  Sacraments,  the  blessed  rest  with 
Christ  of  the  faithful  departed— all  these  are 
the  exact  counterparts  of  this  initial  revelation, 
and  hence  we  find  them  often  clothed  in  Holy 
Scripture  in  imagery  drawn  therefrom.     Think 

*  Westcott,  "Gospel  of  Life,"  p.  197.  \Ibid.,  p.  186. 


90  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

of  the  closing  visions  of  the  Apocalypse : 
"  The  city  zvhich  lieth  four  square  where  they 
need  no  light  of  lamp,  neither  light  of  sun  ;  for 
the  glory  of  God  did  lighten  it  and  the  lamp 
thereof  is  the  Lajnb ;  into  which  there  shall  i7i 
no  wise  enter  anything  uncleaji ;  but  amidst  the 
lio-ht  whereof  the  nations  shall  walk  and  the 
kings  of  the  earth  bring  their  glory  with  it.  So 
that  they  that  wash  their  robes  may  have  the 
right  to  come  to  the  tree  of  life,  and  may  enter  in 
by  the  gates  into  the  city!'  These  last  voices  of 
inspiration  in  all  their  wealth  of  imagery  and 
beauty  unsurpassable,  what  are  they  but  the 
final  confirmation  in  the  great  love  of  God  of 
the  plan  imaged  forth  in  the  narrative  of  Crea- 
tion, the  assurance  of  its  ultimate  triumph,  all 
appearances  notwithstanding,  the  reversal  of 
the  sentence  of  our  expulsion,  the  perfect 
realization  of  the  conditions  foreshadowed  in 
the  first  Paradise,  the  fulfilment  surpassing  all 
imagination  of  the  counsel  of  that  God  who 
said:  ''Light  shall  come  out  of  darkness,  who 
shined  in  our  hearts,  to  give  the  light  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ!' 
Yes,  it  surely  needs  no  further  proof  that  the 
lessons  thus  given  in  this  "preface"  to  all 
revelation   are   primarily  moral    and    spiritual 


THE  CHARTER  OE  HUMAN  LIEE.  9  I 

rather  than  merely  physical  and  historical. 
They  underlie  all  existence,  all  life,  all  service, 
all  hope.  They  form  the  charter  of  humanity, 
the  defence  of  its  nobility,  the  revelation  of  its 
destiny,  the  gospel  of  its  hope.  "  No  criticism," 
as  Dr.  Westcott  truly  says,  "  can  rob  them 
of  their  sublime  majesty  and  pathos,"*  nor, 
we  may  add,  detract  one  iota  from  their  spirit- 
ual greatness,  their  abiding-  importance  to  all 
the  generations  of  men. 

Before  passing  to  consider  the  narrative 
itself  in  the  light  of  these  primary  considera- 
tions we  should  perhaps  refer  for  a  moment,  in 
order  to  dismiss  the  matter  further  from  our 
thoughts,  to  what  the  same  high  authority 
already  quoted  calls  the  "  flood  of  irrelevant 
controversy  "  f  which  has  gathered  round  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis. 

One  of  my  distinguished  predecessors  in  the 
office  of  Paddock  Lecturer,  Bishop  Hugh 
Miller  Thompson,  with  all  that  brilliancy  and 
fire  of  eloquence  of  which  he  is  so  accom- 
plished a  master,  has  already  dealt  with  this 
subject  in  his  opening  lecture  on  "The  World 
and  the  Kingdom."  He  has  so  clearly  and 
forcibly  expressed   my  own  position   that  I  am 

*  Westcott,  "  Gospel  of  Life,"  p.  187.  f  Ibid.,  p.  185. 


92  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

relieved  from  the  necessity  of  doing  more  than 
quoting  one  or  two  sentences  from  that  work. 
As  the  Bishop  justly  says  with  regard  to  much 
literature  of  this  sort:  "It  was  a  literature  at 
which  both  religion  and  science  were  at  their 
weakest,  and  men  were  trying  to  apologize  to 
the  finder  of  a  flint  arrow-head  or  a  human 
skull  "  (or,  we  may  add,  a  fossil),  "  for  their 
belief  in  Almighty  God  and  eternal  righteous- 
ness, and  the  awful  mystery  of  human  life  ;  a 
literature  only  to  be  compared  with  its  opposite, 
that  in  which  every  experimentalist  who  had 
discovered  a  new  microbe  or  a  new  chemical 
compound  felt  himself  at  once  qualified  to 
declare  the  throne  of  the  universe  vacant  and 
himself  capable  of  explaining  and  accounting 
for  all  things  seen  and  unseen.  Such  litera- 
tures will  be  curious  studies  in  psychology  to 
the  men  of  the  twentieth  century."  ^'  Anglican 
theologians  must  have  digested  to  little  pur- 
pose, I  will  not  say  the  teachings  of  the  great 
Fathers  of  the  undivided  Church,  but  the  arg-u- 
ment  of  our  own  judicious  Hooker,  if  they 
ever  suffered  or  encouraged  scientists  to  as- 
sume that  the  primary  object  of  the  narra- 
tive of  Creation  was  to  give  a  scientific  account 

*  "  The  World  and  the  Kingdom,"   Paddock  Lectures  for  1888. 


ITS  AIM  NOT  PRIM  ARIL  V  SCIENTIFIC.         93 

of  the  sequence  or  evolution  of  the  different 
forms  of  life,  so  that  a  great  scientist  of  to-day 
can  still  think  of  that  sublime  prologue  to  all 
revelation  as  a  fence  placed  across  the  path  of 
scientific  investigation.  That  all  this  should 
have  been  even  possible  shows  how  bitter  has 
been  the  Nemesis  which  has  overtaken  us  for 
the  past  neglect  of  Patristic,  or  for  that  matter 
of  Theological  study  which  was  so  common, 
alas,  before  the  spread  of  the  great  Oxford 
movement.  A  more  Catholic  theology  would 
assuredly  have  guarded  men  from  the  snare 
of  regarding  the  sublime  prologue  of  Genesis 
as  a  sort  of  advanced  copy  of  a  monograph  on 
Geological  Biology  three  thousand  years  before 
its  time. 

S.  Augustine  states  it  as  a  commonplace 
that  the  object  of  Holy  Scripture  is  "to  teach 
men  things  of  which  they  ought  not  to  be 
ignorant,  yet  cannot  know  of  themselves." 
Again  and  again  he  insists  that  the  "days  "  in 
Genesis  have  a  causal,  not  a  temporal,  signifi- 
cance ;  ■•'  in  a  word,  that  they  represent  a  state, 
not  a  span.  S.  Chrysostom  reminds  us  in 
several  places  that  we  must  recognize  in  the 
form  of  the  historical  narration  an  "  accommo- 

*  De  Genesi  ad  Litt.,  i.  ^^,  ii.  28,  iv.  25,  32. 


94  THE   CREATION  AND  PARADISE. 

dation  of  the  merciful  God"  unfolding  "the 
order  of  the  things  that  were  made  "  and  how 
"  each  was  brought  forth,"  *  an  accommodation 
which  he  contrasts  with  the  brevity  of  the  cor- 
responding part  of  the  prologue  of  S.  John's 
Gospel.  "The  son  of  Thunder,"  he  says, 
"does  not  proceed  in  this  way"  (of  historical 
narrative)  "  when  the  human  race  had  advanced 
in  virtue,  but  leads  on  to  more  lofty  teaching." 
S.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  again  tells  how  Moses 
sets  before  us  doctrine  in  the  form  of  a  history 
laropixcdtspov  xal  Sl"    aiviy[iar6v.'f      All  these 


*  Homilia  in  Gen.  iii.  2  (ed.  Gaume,  p.  21).  6  (piXiivbpwiros  ©eJiy 
Sio  TTjS  Tov  irpoipriTov  •y\wTr7)s  iraiSevwy  rh  rwv  avSrpdiirwv  yei/os,  elSevai 
ru)V  yivoiUvwv  rrjv  rd^iv,  Kal  tIs  o  tov  Travrhs  STJUiovpyhs,  Koi  Sirws 
fKacTToy  TrapTix^V-  'E'n-eiS^  7^^,  eri  areAearepov  SieKeiro  rh  raiy  av- 
dpdoTTUv  yepos,  Kol  ovK  7]SuvaT0  Tuv  TeKeiOTepau/  avvUvai  ri/v  KaravSriatv, 
dia  TovTO  irphs  t)]v  twv  aKovovruv  aabeveiav  rb  Tlvevixa.  rh  &yiov  rijv 
TOV  ■jrpocpriTOv  y\ci>TTav  Kivr\(Tav  ovtws  airavTa  rjfxiv  SiaXfyerai.  Kol  'Iva 
/xdbrjs  OTi  5io  tJ)  dreAes  t^?  rj/xeT^pas  Siauolas  TavTT)  ixpV'^O'TO  Ty 
(TvyKaTa^dcreL  Tr\s  Siriyfjo'eoos,  opa  Thy  ttjs  fipovTrjs  vlhv,  ots  irphs  apeTijv 
eTreScoKe  rb  twv  av^punruv  yivos,  ovk^ti  tclvttjv  epx^fievov  t^v  o^hv,  a\X 
iiri  t)]v  v\pri\oTepau  StSaaKaXiav  &yovTa  tovs  aKpoaijxevovs.  Elirwi/  yap, 
Ev  apxy  "fl"  o  Aoyos  k.  t.  \. 

f  Oratio  Catechetica  c.  viii.  (p.  33  ed.  Migne).  S.  Gregory  is  com- 
menting upon  the  "coats  of  skins  "  in  Gen.  iii.  The  whole  passage 
is  as  follows  :  "  Th  Se  toiovtov  S6yfj.a  IcrTopiKdiTepov  fjiev  koI  SI  alviyixa- 
Twv  6  McDO-fjs  vfjuv  iKTibiTai.  TlhTTiv  eKdrjKov  Kal  to.  almy/naTa  t^v  SiSacr- 
KaKiav  ex«." 


PA  TKISTIC  CAXONS  OF  IXTERPKETA  TIOX.    95 

representative  Fathers  emphasize  the;  thought 
that  however  fuU  ot  instruction  th(;  details  of 
the  narrative  may  prove  to  be,  and  probably 
the  Church  has  not  yet  penetrated  to  their  full 
significance,  yet  they  must  ever  remain  strictly 
subordinate  to  the  orreat  fundamental  postulates 
of  all  religion  which  they  enshrine,  the  primary 
lessons  of  which  they  illustrate  and  develop.  S. 
Thomas  of  Aquin  only  sums  up  the  verdict  alike 
ofrelieious  common  sense  and  of  the  truest  his- 
torical  theology  when  he  says  that  Holy  Scrip- 
ture speaks  "  in  the  language  of  the  people," 
"secundem  opinionem  populi."  *  In  other 
words,  that  part  of  the  accommodation  implied 
in  the  very  nature  of  a  revelation  is  that  it  will 
be  couched  in  the  tongues  of  men  ;  that  both 
its  message  and  its  form  will  be  relative  to  the 
needs  of  humanity  as  a  whole,  to  the  necessities 
of  man  as  man,  not  to  the  speculation  of  savants 
in  this  nineteenth  Christian  century.  As  of  old 
the  message  will  come  home  to  each  man  in 
the  tongue  wherein  he  was  born.  We  shall 
be  disappointed,  therefore,  if  we  go  to  it  for  en- 
lio-htenment  on  matters  of  no  spiritual  moment 
whatever,  for  knowledge  of  a  kind  which  the 
light    of   reason    implanted  within    us  is    ade- 

*Summa.,  i-^  2a;  ij.  98  a.  3  ad  2"^. 


96  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

quate  to  enable  us  gradually  to  discover,  A 
careful  study  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis, 
under  the  guidance  of  S.  Augustine  or  S. 
Chrysostom,  will  make  it  clear  that  the  various 
details  of  the  Divine  History  have  nothing  in 
common  with  any  scientific  investigation  of  an 
extinct  fossilized  world ;  that  when  we  read 
of  herbs  and  trees,  of  fish  and  fowl  and  land 
animals,  we  are  meant  to  think  of  the  corre- 
sponding living  things  as  we  know  them  in  this 
present  age  and  state  ;  of  those  things  which 
man  all  around  was  preventing  to  his  own 
degradation  by  idolatrous  worship,  and  which 
are  here  traced  up  in  orderly  sequence  to  the 
hand  of  the  living  God. 

Or,  to  go  one  step  further,  we  are  to  see 
here  the  Divine  antidote  to  that  idolatry  of  cre- 
ated things  which  is  always  with  us,  and  is  none 
the  less  deadly  in  civilized  America  to  day  than 
in  the  days  of  the  savage  red  man,  although  it 
does  not  now  cloak  itself  in  the  outward  rarb 
of  idolatrous  worship  ;  the  Divine  vindication 
of  man's  true  office  in  the  midst  of  sentient 
and  inanimate  Nature  to  represent  in  it  the 
authority  and  the  character  of  God,  to  be  a  co- 
worker with  the  Creator  in  brino-inof  its  uncon- 
scious  service  into  a  deeper  harmony,  in  secur- 


THE  ANTIDOTE   TO  IDOLATRY.  97 

ing  the  consecration  of  its  manifold  treasures 
by  the  free  offering  of  a  self-conscious  spiritual 
nature.  S.  Chrysostom,  in  his  Homilies,  clearly 
states  *  that  a  chief  office  of  Genesis  I.  was  to 
wean  man  from  idolatry  ;  and  it  is  si^^^nificant  in 
this  connection  to  notice  the  emphasis  there  laid 
upon  the  light,  the  bright  sky,  the  mighty 
waters,  the  fertile  earth,  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars,  the  trees  or  the  living  animals,  all  of 
which  were  actually  objects  of  false  worship, 
common  among  the  Semitic  or  Egyptian  peo- 
ples, by  whom  Israel  was  surrounded.  As  S. 
Augustine  truly  says,  it  is  in  the  power  which  it 
has  to  mould  human  character  after  the  likeness 
of  God,  that  the  supreme  proof  is  to  be  found, 
that  the  Church  possesses  the  true  interpreta- 
tion of  Holy  Scripture, -j-  and  whatever  has  little 
or  nothing  in  common  with  this  supreme  aim 
may  safely  be  left  to  be  deduced  from  other 
sources  than  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The  first 
chapter  of  Genesis  then  had  primarily  in  view 
the  triumph  of  Israel  over  the  idolatry  of 
heathenism.  It  still  makes  for  the  ever-grow- 
ing victory  of  the  faith  of  Christ  over  the  mani- 
fold temptations  which  assail  man  through  his 
relation  to  the  world  without  him. 

*  In  Gen.  Ilomilia,  II.  2  (ed.  Gaumc,  p.  14).      \  Dc  Gen.  ad  Litt.,  I.  40. 


98  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

From  this  standpoint  it  is  of  great  interest 
to  note  the  connection  which  recent  archseoloof- 
ical  discovery  is  reveahng  between  the  in- 
spired record  of  Genesis  now  under  consid- 
eration and  the  cosmological  conceptions 
(perverted  as  they  for  the  most  part  were  to 
idolatrous  uses)  which  were  then  current — 
conceptions  by  which  Israel  was  during  the 
greater  part  of  its  history  actually  surrounded. 
Imperfect  and  fragmentary  as  our  present 
knowledge  no  doubt  is,  for  the  whole  science 
is  but  a  thing  of  yesterday,  yet  the  light  thrown 
upon  the  long-buried  treasures  of  the  East 
in  the  writings  of  men  like  George  Smith, 
Schrader,  and  Sayce,  have  made  it  abundantly 
clear  that  a  real  connection  (whether  it  be 
direct  or,  as  is  much  more  probable,  indirect) 
exists  between  these  early  chapters  of  the  Bible 
and  those  ancient  relics  of  a  lono-buried  world. 
The  cosmological  conceptions  which  the  Patri- 
archs probably  shared  in  common  with  their 
fellow  Semites  are  thus  made  the  earthly 
vessel  in  which  is  to  be  poured  the  rich  treasure 
of  a  unique  and  special  inspiration.  Just  as 
the  humanity  of  our  Blessed  Lord  was  fash- 
ioned by  the  supernatural  act  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  from  the  substance  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 


BO  Til  II L  'MA N  A  ND  DI I  'IXE.  99 

His  mother,  so  it  would  seem  that  by  a  similar 
Creative  act  the  Revelation  which  was  to  be 
adequate  for  all  time  was  fashioned  from  the 
rough  elements  of  human  thought,  built  up 
together  to  form  the  chosen  shrine  of  the 
deepest  and  highest  truth.  It  can  but  call 
forth  our  devout  adoration  and  deepen  our 
reverence  to  trace  in  this  fair  work  of  God  the 
marks  indisputable  and  deep  of  its  derivation 
on  the  human  side,  if  only  we  approach  the 
matter  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Catholic 
Faith.  As  in  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation, 
so  also  here,  we  have  need  to  pluck  our  shoes 
from  off  our  feet,  for  we  are  drawing  nigh  to  a 
Divine  presence,  the  ground  on  which  we  tread 
is  holy  ground. 

Let  us  beware  in  this  matter  also  of  the 
twin  and  subtle  errors  which  correspond  to  the 
Nestorian  and  Eutychian  views  of  our  Lord's 
Incarnate  Person.  On  the  one  side  we  must 
be  on  our  guard  against  the  tendency  which 
shows  itself  in  a  loose,  lax  view  of  the  vital  and 
unbroken  connection  existing  from  first  to  last 
between  the  human  and  the  Divine  in  Holy 
Scripture,  so  that  men  are  content  to  explain 
each  part  of  Scripture  on  a  purely  human  basis, 
and  then   postulate  its   Divine  character  as   a 


lOO  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

kind  of  after-thought ;  an  addition  to  that  which 
was  humanly  complete  before,  rather  than 
as  the  fashioner  and  builder  of  those  very 
human  elements  themselves.  And  on  the 
other  hand  we  must  never  refuse  to  look  the 
"human"  facts  in  the  face,  or  expect,  like 
Eutyches,  to  find  the  Divine  so  interpenetrat- 
ing the  human  as  to  leave  no  true  human  ele- 
ment there  at  all.  Rather  let  us  take  for  our 
watchword  on  this  subject  also  the  great  motto 
of  Chalcedon  : 

oL(TVyx'vroo5,  atpsntoos,  adiaiptrcos,  axoopifftcos. 

Throughout  Holy  Scripture  we  must  confess 
both  a  true  human  and  a  true  Divine  element 
vitally  and  indissolubly  united  in  the  living 
Word,  yet  so  that  all  which  is  truly  human 
still  abides  glorified  and  transformed,  but  never 
losing  its  proper  human  characteristics.  The  re- 
ligious and  intellectual  environment  of  our  own 
day  is  hardly  such  as  to  dispose  us  Anglo-Cath- 
olics to  Eutychian  views  on  the  matter  ;  but 
we  have  undoubtedly  much  need  to  be  on  our 
guard  against  the  Nestorianism  which  is  so 
rife  in  the  present  age  and  yet  is  so  subtle  in 
its  nature  and  in  its  approach. 

Each  act  of  inspiration  is  a  vital  assimilation 


VI TA  L  CIIA  RA  C  TER  OF  JXSPIRA  TIOX.         I O I 

of  the  human  into  a  livhig;  fellowship  with  the 
Divine,  not  a  mechanical  combination  of  the 
two  ;  whereby  not  merely  is  the  human  element 
purified  and  made  meet  for  its  Divine  work  but 
the  qualities  thereof  are  enlarged  to  the  ful- 
ness of  their  capacity.  Hence  comes  the  inex- 
haustible fulness  of  Holy  Scripture,  the  wealth 
of  its  application  (so  striking  in  comparison  with 
any  other  book)  with  which  every  true  priest  is 
familiar.  To  argue  about  Holy  Scripture  as 
though  the  human  element  in  it  were  the  whole, 
seems  as  certain  to  lead  us  into  serious  error  as 
if  one  were  to  write  a  treatise  on  the  habits  and 
movements  of  living  things  based  on  the  postu- 
late that  they  were  subject  to  no  other  law  than 
that  of  gravitation. 

But  to  return  to  the  Babylonian  records. 
It  is  clear  from  the  fragments  which  have  been 
already  discovered,  that  from  very  early  times 
cosmological  questions  played  an  important 
part  in  Babylonian  thought  and  literature.  It 
is,  moreover,  probable  that  from  Babylonia  they 
passed  into  Greece,  as  the  physical  speculations 
of  the  earliest  Greek  philosophical  school 
seem  to  have  decided  affinities  with  the  cunei- 
form documents.  Be  this  as  it  may,  we  possess 
two  main  Babylonian  accounts  of  the  origin  of 


I O  2  THE  CREA  7  'ION  A  ND  PA  RA  DISE. 

things.  These  are  evidently  closely  connected 
by  some  common  ties,  yet  stand  widely  differ- 
entiated from  each  other,  both  in  date  and  form. 
The  earliest  of  them  goes  back  to  Sumerian 
times,  and  was  found  in  a  bilingual  form  (like 
the  Codex  Bezae  for  example),  the  original 
Sumerian  with  an  interlinear  translation  into 
Semitic  Babylonian.  The  later,  which  is  also 
much  the  longer  account,  dates  in  its  present 
form  from  the  seventh  century  b.c.  It  forms 
part  of  a  library  of  extant  Babylonian  litera- 
ture, copied  by  order  of  the  great  monarch, 
Assurbanipal.  We  must  not,  however,  con- 
clude therefrom  that  the  account  itself  is  neces- 
sarily, or  even  probably,  of  so  late  a  date.  The 
brick  records  expressly  state  that  the  collec- 
tion thus  made  embraced  the  whole  then  ex- 
tant literature  belonging  to  various  historical 
periods.  Most  unfortunately  this  collection 
has  reached  us  only  in  an  imperfect  state.  A 
good  part  perished  in  the  overthrow  of  Nine- 
veh. Enough,  however,  has  survived  to  tell  of 
the  existence  of  several  versions  of  the  story 
of  Creation,  large  portions  of  one  of  which 
have  been  pieced  together  and  deciphered. 
Thus  we  are  enabled  to  compare  this  longer 
Creation  epic,  which  bears  abundant  marks  of 


THE  C  UN  EI  FORM  A  CCO  UN  TS.  1  O  3 

later  expansion  in  the  theoloq^ical  direction, 
with  the  early  Sumerian  account.  The  ac- 
counts in  full  may  be  conveniently  read  in 
Prof.  Sayce's  recent  book,  "The  Higher  Criti- 
cism and  the  Monuments." 

The  earliest  document  uses  the  idea  of  the 
Creation  as  a  setting  for  celebrating  the  praises 
of  the  great  temples  of  ChakLxa,  and  of  their 
chief  and  most  ancient  cities.  Then  we  read 
in  reference  to  the  great  temple  at  Eridu  : 

"  The  glorious  house,  the  house  of  the  gods  in  a 
glorious  place,  had  not  been  made; 

"  A  plant  had  not  been  brought  forth,  a  tree  had 
not  been  created; 

"A  brick  had  not  been  made,  a  beam  had  not 
been  formed; 

"  A  house  had  not  been  built,  a  city  had  not  been 
constructed;  "  * 

and  so  on. 

Here  follow  the  names  of  various  cities  and 
temples  which  had  not  been  built,  and  lower 
down  the  reference  to  Eridu  is  repeated. 

"The  deep  had  not  been  made,  Eridu  had  net 
been  constructed. 

"  As  for  the  glorious  house,  the  house  of  the  gods, 
its  seat  had  not  been  made. 

*Sayce,  "  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  p.  91. 


I04  THE  CKEA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

"The  whole  of  the  lands,  the  sea  also  had  not 
been  formed. 

*'  When  with  the  sea  the  current  was, 
*'  In  that  day  Eridu  was  made,"  etc. 
**  Babylon  was  built,"  etc.* 

This  is  followed  by  an  account  of  the  mak- 
ing of  the  gods  and  the  spirits  of  the  earth, 
after  which  comes  fresh  praise  of  the  dwelling- 
place  of  the  gods,  the  making  of  which  is 
ascribed  to  Merodach,  the  Sun  god.  Then  we 
are  told 

"  He  made  mankind. 

"He  made  the  beasts  of  the  field  and  the  living 
creatures  of  the  desert. 

"He  made  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  and  set 
them  in  their  place,  "f 

Here  follows  in  somewhat  confused  fashion 
mention  of  the  making  of  specified  plants  and 
animals  of  the  field  and  of  the  forest. 

Venerable  in  point  of  antiquity  as  this  docu- 
ment unquestionably  is,  its  strong  local  colour- 
ing, its  lack  of  order,  and  its  evident  aim  to 
celebrate  the  glories  of  Assyrian  architecture, 
make  it  probable  that  it  does  not  represent  the 
Creation  poem  in  its  original  state,  but  an 
adaptation  of  the  original  form  to  this  special 

*  Sayce,  "The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  p.  92.        \  Ibid. 


THE   TWO  EPICS.  IO5 

purpose.  The  second  line,  which  bears  strong 
resemblance  to  Genesis  II.  5,  seems  uncom- 
fortably farced  between  the  different  references 
to  the  Temple  at  Eridu  ;  whilst  the  seat  of  the 
gods  is  represented  as  a  magnificent  building, 
an  image  which  has  no  point  of  contact  with 
the  Hebrew  narrative. 

The  longer  epic  seems  to  represent  a  more 
direct  cosmological  tradition.  In  its  present 
form  it  contains  pretty  obvious  expansions,  such 
as  the  long  narrative  of  the  conflict  between 
Merodach,  the  Sun  god,  and  Tiamat,  the  repre- 
sentative of  darkness,  disorder,  and  chaos.  Its 
opening  tablet  has  striking  resemblances  to  the 
Biblical  account  of  both  P  and  J.  Thus,  for 
example,  it  incorporates  the  isolated  verse 
which  was  noticed  in  the  Sumerian  document 
as  so  strikingly  parallel  to  J's  narrative  in 
Genesis  II.  5.  Here  are  some  of  its  important 
parts  : 

"When  on  hi^h  the  heavens  proclaimed  not, 

"  And  earth  beneath  recorded  not  a  name; 

"  Then  the  abyss  of  waters  was  in  the  beginning 
their  generator, 

•'  The  chaos  of  the  deep  was  she  who  bore  them  all. 

"  Their  waters  were  embosomed  together  (i.e.  cov- 
ered everything), 


I06  THE  CREATION  AND  PARADISE. 

"  The  plant  of  the  field  was  ungathered,  the  herb  (of 
the  field)  ungrown. 

"  When  the  gods  had  not  appeared  (any  one  of 
them), 

''  By  no  name  were  they  recorded,  no  destiny  (had 
they  fixed) ; 

"  Then  were  the  great  gods  created  •  '* 

and  so  on. 

Then  follows  a  list  of  chief  deities  by  name. 
After  a  considerable  gap,  in  which  the  record 
is  mutilated,  we  have  a  long  account  of  the 
war  between  Merodach  and  Tiamat  and  of 
the  part  which  different  gods  took  therein. 
Finally,  Tiamat  is  slain.  The  result  of  this 
victory  of  the  god  of  light  over  darkness  and 
chaos  is  the  restraining  of  the  waters  so  that 

''  The  sky  is  bright,  the  lower  earth  rejoices,"  etc. 

The  firmament,  which  is  compared  to  a  great 
building  (not  as  in  the  Old  Testament  to 
an  expanse),  is  established  and  made  the 
stronghold  in  the  heavens  of  the  great  gods. 
Then  follows  the  account  of  the  fixing  of 
the  habitations  of  the  great  gods  in  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  sky,  the  ordaining  of  the 
year  subject  to  the  signs  of  the  zodiac,  three 
stars  for  each  month,  the  founding  of  the  man- 
sion   of  the   sun    god,  the  illumination  of  the 


THE  LONGER  EPIC  IN  DETAIL.  lOJ 

moon  god  to  be  the  watchman  of  the  night, 
etc.  After  a  considerable  gap  in  the  record 
we  pass  to  the  creation  of  the  beasts,  the 
monsters,  the  Hving  creatures,  cattle,  and  creep, 
ing  things  by  the  great  gods  in  their  assem- 
bly. The  primal  monsters  were  destroyed  and 
their  place  taken  by  the  present  animal  creation. 

The  remainder  of  the  epic  is  lost,  but  the 
narrative  of  Berossus,  who  three  centuries 
later,  in  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
wrote  an  account  of  the  literature  of  his  people, 
is  in  such  general  accordance  with  the  chief 
contents  of  the  epic  that  it  becomes  possible  to 
approximate  with  considerable  probability  to 
the  substance  of  the  missing  sequel.  It  prob- 
ably contained  some  account  of  the  formation 
of  men  who,  according  to  Berossus,  were  pro- 
duced by  the  action  of  one  of  the  gods  mixing 
the  earth  with  the  blood  which  tiowed  forth 
from  the  head  of  Bel. 

Unquestionably  these  relics  of  the  far-off 
past,  these  voices  from  a  civilization  which  once 
covered  the  known  world  with  its  literature,  pre- 
sent striking  points  of  contact  with  the  Book  of 
Genesis  ;  but  they  present  even  still  more  strik- 
ing points  of  difference.  It  is  not  merely  that, 
as  Prof  Sayce  puts  it,  "  In  passing  from  the  As- 


I08  THE  CREATION  AND  PARADISE. 

Syrian  poem  to  the  Biblical  narrative,  we  seem 
to  pass  from  romance  to  reality ; "  *  or  as  Prof. 
Jastrow,  another  leading  Orientalist,  says  :  "In 
distinction  from  the  greatness  of  the  former 
the  latter  sounds  like  a  nursery  tale."  -|-  Not 
merely  that  the  child-like  mythology  of  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  has  given  place  to  the 
stern  monotheism  and  elevated  spirituality  of 
Genesis,  but  that,  as  we  shall  notice  more  in 
detail  presently,  there  is  a  whole  world  of 
moral  and  spiritual  idea  contained  in  the  brief 
words  of  Genesis,  which  is  entirely  wanting  in 
the  heathen  records.  The  former  is  not  simply 
a  magnificent  revelation  of  God  the  Creator ; 
it  is  also  the  great  charter  of  humanity,  the 
pledge  of  the  abiding  fellowship  between  God 
and  man,  and  of  the  ultimate  accomplishment 
of  man's  high  destiny  thereby.  The  one  doc- 
ument holds  within  itself  the  secret  of  the 
regeneration  of  the  world  ;  the  other  is  but  a 
venerable  and  curious  cosmological  conceit. 

Yet  such  considerations  must  not  blind  us  to 
the  undeniable  resemblances  with  the  Genesis 
account  which  these  documents  present — re- 
semblances  so  strong  as  to  force  upon  us  the 

*  "  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  pp.  77,  78. 
f  See  the  Century  Maga/^ine  for  January,  1894. 


RESEMBLAXCES  WITH  GENESIS.  lOQ 

conviction  of  some  connection,  direct  or  indi- 
rect, between  them.  Even  the  apparently 
truncated  Sumerian  poem  has  resemblances 
both  with  the  Jahvistic  and  the  Elohistic  narra- 
tives (note  the  detail  with  which  plants  and 
animals  are  described),  but  this  is  still  more 
obvious  in  the  longer  epic,  particularly  in  the 
opening  verses,  where  it  is  startling  to  find  the 
opening  sections  of  both  P  and  J  combined  in 
one  organic  whole.  To  quote  Prof.  Sayce  : 
"  Different  as  the  two  accounts  of  the  creation 
may  be  they  are  united  in  the  cosmology  of 
Babylonia."  *  When  we  take  account  of  the 
known  fact  (guaranteed  by  the  Assurbanipal 
tablets),  that  the  story  of  Creation  existed  in 
many  forms  (adapted  probably  to  various  ends), 
and  then  of  this  other  fact,  that  in  the  two 
utterly  distinct  forms  in  which  it  has  actually 
reached  us  the  main  common  elements  com- 
bine material  both  from  the  Elohistic  and 
Jahvistic  accounts  ;  we  may  infer  with  consid- 
erable probability  that  the  main  features, 
both  of  Gen.  I.  and  Gen.  II.,  of  P  and  of 
JE  were  combined  in  one  common  cosmo- 
logical  tradition  of  the  Semitic  ancestors  of 
Israel. 

*"  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  p.  83. 


no  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

For  it  is  most  improbable,  as  some  of  the 
critics  have  supposed,  that  this  fundamental 
groundwork  was  derived  from  Babylonian 
sources  in  the  times  of  the  monarchy  or  in  the 
days  of  the  exiles.  The  character  of  the  myth- 
ological records,  as  we  know  them  from  the 
almost  contemporaneous  tablets  of  Assurbani- 
pal,  makes  it  practically  impossible  that  any 
Hebrew  prophet,  any  successor  of  Hosea  and 
Amos,  of  Isaiah  and  Micah,  would  select  these 
complicated  myths  of  the  hated  Chaldaeans  to 
form  the  groundwork  of  a  supplemental  narra- 
tive of  the  Creation.  Fancy  a  prophet  of  the 
Isaianic  school  with  his  heart  full  of  burning  in- 
dignation against  Babylonian  idolatry,  with  the 
very  protest  of  the  last  part  of  Isaiah  against 
the  gods  of  Babylon  ringing  in  his  ear,  endeav- 
oring to  prune  down  the  mythological  fancies 
of  that  long  epic  of  Assurbanipal  into  the  mag- 
nificent simplicity  of  Genesis  I.  The  situation 
is  inconceivable.  Knowing,  as  we  now  do, 
how  the  cuneiform  account  had  expanded  with 
the  growth  of  time,  it  becomes  infinitely  more 
likely  that  the  original  elements  of  the  Crea- 
tion story  were  the  common  Semitic  original  of 
both  the  Biblical  and  the  cuneiform  records, 
than  that  the  former  was  consciously  cut  out 


PROBABLE  COMMON  ANCESTR  Y.  I  I  I 

from  the  cuneiform  in  anything  like  their  con- 
temporary development. 

Moreover,  as  has  been  often  noticed,  there 
are  some  positive  indications  of  weight  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  the  determination  of 
the  matter.  Some,  at  least,  of  the  material  of 
the  Jahvistic  account  had  long  been  in  the  [pos- 
session of  Israel.  The  very  fact  that  Paradise 
is  placed  in  Babylonia  is  absolutely  inconsistent, 
not  merely  with  an  origin  in  the  Exilic  period, 
but  in  any  period  of  the  monarchy  from  the  time 
when  Assyria  had  begun  to  loom  upon  the  dis- 
tant horizon  as  a  threatening  military  power. 
The  mention  of  the  fig  tree  in  III.  7  points 
strongly  to  a  distinctly  Palestinian  standpoint, 
that  being  a  common  tree  in  Palestine  and 
Egypt,  but  not  in  Babylonia  ;  as  also  do  the 
confused  and  apparently  insoluble  geographical 
details  as  to  the  position  of  the  Garden  of  Eden. 
We  conclude,  therefore,  confidently  that  it  was 
from  Babylon,  regarded  as  the  mother  of  litera- 
ture, not  from  Babylon,  the  mistress  of  the  na- 
tions or  the  haughty  oppressor  that  the  ground 
stock  of  cosmological  conceptions  was  derived 
which  is  embodied  in  the  inspired  narrative. 

This    result  is  in  exact  agreement  with  the 
historical  picture  which  we  now  possess  of  the 


I  I  2  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

universal  diffusion  of  Babylonian  thought  and 
letters,  both  in  Egypt  and  in  Palestine,  in  the 
pre-Mosaic  period.  The  discovery  at  Tell-el- 
Amarna  of  the  actual  archives  and  state  corre- 
spondence of  the  Semitic  rulers  of  Egypt  before 
the  period  of  the  Exodus,  has  revealed  the  ex- 
istence of  Babylonian  literary  influence  over  the 
people  of  Western  Asia,  so  widespread  that  it 
has  revolutionized  all  our  conceptions  of  the 
contemporary  history.  Such  a  statement  as  that 
of  Schultz,  when  he  speaks  of  the  Hebrews  as 
living  in  "a  state  of  primitive  simplicity  as  re- 
gards culture  "  *  while  in  Egypt,  is  now  utterly 
disproved  by  the  actual  records  of  the  time,  and 
with  it  therefore  falls  to  the  orround  his  whole 
argument  against  the  preservation  in  Israel  of 
the  Chaldaean  wisdom  of  their  ancestors.  Civil- 
service  schools  existed  in  Egypt  for  training 
pupils  in  the  Babylonian  tongue  and  literature. 
It  is  probable  that  the  sons  of  Joseph  were 
familiar  with  these  in  their  Egyptian  home,  and 
it  seems  certain  that  the  previously  dominant 
literature  cannot  have  so  suddenly  disappeared 

*  Schultz, "  Old  Testament  Theology  "  (T.  and  T.  Clark,  I.  io6) :  "  That 
a  pastoral  people  like  the  Hebrews  could,  while  living  in  Egyptian 
bondage  and  in  circumstances  of  primitive  simplicity  as  regards  culture, 
have  retained  in  iLeir  memories  for  centuries  the  wisdom  of  the  Chal- 
deans is  an  idea  that  bids  defiance  to  all  historical  probability." 


EARL  V  DIFFUSION  OF  LITER  A  TURE.         I  I  3 

as  that  Moses,  who  was  "  learned  in  all  the  wis- 
dom of  the  Egyptians,"  can  have  been  ignorant 
of  it ;  whilst  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  recol- 
lection of  what  was  everywhere  around  their 
ancestors  in  the  Patriarchal  period  should  have 
died  out  from  the  minds  of  their  descendants. 
Rather  the  probability  grows  on  us,  as  we  for 
the  first  time  apprehend  the  true  situation,  that 
Moses,  when  leading  the  people  into  a  land 
where  in  its  polytheistic  and  mythological  de- 
velopment they  would  be  surrounded  on  all 
sides  by  this  ancient  Babylonian  wisdom,  should 
have  under  Divine  inspiration  furnished  his 
people  with  the  necessary  defence,  in  the  con- 
version of  that  wisdom  itself  to  the  confirmation 
of  their  faith  in  the  true  God :  just  as  the  Apostle 
S.  John  in  the  end  of  the  days  similarly  made 
the  current  philosophical  conceptions  of  the 
Locros  the  orroundwork  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
prologue  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  thus  laid 
the  foundation  of  the  Church's  victories  in  the 
next  century,  by  giving  the  necessary  starting- 
point  for  the  development  of  all  later  Christian 
theology. 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  the  effect  of  all  this 
arcrument  is  to  contradict  or  to  iofnore  all  the 
ascertained  results  of  criticism  as   to  the  sep- 


I  I  4  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

arate  origin  of  the  two  Creation  narratives. 
It  may  be  well,  therefore,  to  consider  this  point 
in  the  remainder  of  this  lecture. 

Let  me  say,  then,  frankly  at  the  outset,  that 
unquestionably  the  fundamental  assumptions 
of  the  literary  criticism,  particularly  in  refer- 
ence to  the  Book  of  Genesis,  must  be  entirely 
re-examined  in  the  liorht  of  the  recent  dis- 
coveries  of  Tell-el-Amarna.  Here,  at  any 
rate,  if  not  generally,  the  critic  has,  in  the 
words  of  Prof.  Sayce,  "  made  his  own  ignorance 
the  measure  of  the  credibility  of  an  ancient 
document."  *  The  historical  postulates  on 
which  the  critical  estimate  of  a  narrative  such 
as  Gen.  I.  rested  have  been  absolutely  swept 
away,  and  hence,  even  if  the  literary  analysis  be 
still  accepted,  at  least  the  current  critical  con- 
ception of  the  value  and  date  of  the  documents 
must  be  profoundly  modified. 

But  I  unhesitatingly  go  further  than  this. 
The  current  analysis  itself  seems  to  me  to 
have  p-iven  far  less  weio^ht  than  is  due  to  the 
essential  connection  between  the  narratives, 
or  to  the  strong  bands  set  deep  in  the  sub- 
ject matter  itself,  which  knit  them  together. 
Prof.    Briggs   has    summed   up    in    convenient 

*"  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  p.  1 6. 


AIJ.F.CED  DIFFERENCES  IX  P  AND  J.         1  I  5 

lorm  what  he  considers  the  points  of  difference 
between  the  two  nari^atives,  which  render  it 
impossible  to  conceive  them  to  be  the;  \\()xV  of 
one  author.  President  Harper  in  "  Ilebraica" 
sets  forth  the  same  positions  and  in  somewhat 
less  delicate  fashion.  Similar  arguments  are 
used  by  the  critical  commentaries  generally. 

To  begin,  then,  with  the  alleged  differences 
in  the  representation  of  God's  creative  work. 
In  one  account  we  are  told  He  "creates"  by 
speaking. 

"  He  is  conceived  as  a  commander  of  an  army, 
summoning  His  troops  for  review,  Hne  upon  hne, 
until  they  all  stand  before  Him  an  organized  host."  * 

In  the  other  God  "  uses  His  hands  in  creation." 
[By  the  way,  how   does   Prof.  Briggs   know 
this  ?    It  must  be  from  some  other  source  than 
our  text  of  Genesis.] 

"He  plants  the  Garden  of  Eden  as  a  gardener," 
etc.f 

Now,  put  shortly,  this  amounts  to  saying  that 
according  to  the  two  accounts  God  is  repre- 
sented in  the  one  case  as  creating  by  a  word,  in 
the  other  as  fashioning  through  means.  We  ask 
in  the  first  place,  why  not  ?  Why  should  this 
difference  be  anything  more  than  the  two  com- 

*Briggs,  "  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hcxatcuch, '  p.  75.  f  Ibid. 


I  l6  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

plementary  sides  of  the  picture  which  must  be 
combined  to  obtain  a  full  view  of  the  whole  ? 
Apply  the  same  test  to  the  Gospel  narrative.  Is 
not  our  Lord  stated  by  the  same  evangelist  at 
one  time  to  have  healed  the  sick  of  the  palsy  by 
a  word,  at  another  to  have  eiven  sieht  to  the 
blind,  only  by  taking  him  aside  privately,  by 
putting  his  fingers  into  his  ears,  by  spitting  and 
touching  his  tongue  ?  and  does  any  one  assert 
that  the  difference  proves  S.  Mark  to  have 
here  combined  two  distinct  and  separate  por- 
traitures of  the  Lord  orieinatinsf  in  different 
conceptions  of  His  method  of  working  ?  Surely 
this  converting  of  complementary  truths  into 
contradictory  antitheses  outdoes  the  perverse  in- 
genuity even  of  our  wildest  modern  sectaries. 
But  further,  the  contrast  is  far  more  sweeping 
than  accurate.  We  read  only  three  times  of 
a  Creative  act — in  the  origin  of  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  generally,*  in  that  of  sentient 
life,  -{-  and  in  that  of  rational  and  spiritual  exist- 
ence amongst  men.  \  These  are  the  three 
occasions  in  which  the  word  X~i3  is  used. 
But  just  the  same  number  of  times  in  Gen. 
L  we  have  the  word  n"'J/,  "  to  make,"  occurring, 
the    use    of    which    in   the    second  account   is 

*  Gen.  i.  I.  "f  Gen.  i.  21.  "  :j:  Gen,  i.  27. 


COMPLEMENTARY  NOT  CONTRADICTOR  Y.  I  I  7 

said  to  be  in  accordance  with  tin;  usajj^e  of 
J  elsewhere  and  of  all  the  earlier  writers. 
Thus,  we  are  told,  Hod  )}iadc  the  finuaniciit, 
God  t)iadc  tlic  two  g7'cat  ligJits,  God  made  the 
beasts  of  the  cartJi  after  his  kind.  *  The  same 
word  occurs  as  a  synonym  wath  ^"2  in  the 
words  "  Let  us  make  man'''  which  are  fol- 
lowed by  the  statement:  "  .V^^  God  cre- 
ated mail  in  J  lis  own  imaged  •\  Thus  the 
actual  facts  fail  to  bear  out  the  assumed 
antithesis.  It  is  true  that  we  have  Divine 
Words  mentioned  in  Gen.  I.,  but  so  have 
we  also  in  Gen.  II,,  e.g.  in  v.  i8,  where  we 
read  '''the  Lord  God  said,  It  is  not  meet  that 
man  should  be  alone  ;  "  introducing-  the  narrative 
as  to  the  formation  of  woman  in  exactly  the 
same  way  as  the  analogous  Divine  Word  in  the 
first  chapter.^  If  any  modern  critic  is  super- 
ficial enough  to  imagine  that  the  conception  of 
the  Creator,  actually  pronouncing  the  words  in 
empty  space,  exhausts  or  represents  the  essen- 
tial meaning  of  t\\(i  corresponding  narrative, 
let  him  be  put  to  school  with  S,  Augustine  or 
let  him  learn  to  s/raduate  in  the  school  of  com- 
mon  sense.  Clearly  by  the  I  )ivine  Words  we 
are    intended    to  understand    the    correspond- 

*Gcn.  i.  7,  i6,  25.  |Gen.  i.  26,  27.  %  ^•-■"-  •■  26. 


1 18  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

ence  of  the  various  orders  of  creation  in  their 
several  conditions  of  being  with  the  Divine 
volition,  as  exerted  through  the  agency  of  the 
Eternal  Word  of  God.  The  character  of 
Gen.  11.  does  not  require  any  comparison  of 
the  several  orders  of  existence  ;  but  whenever 
the  narratives  are  parallel  an  exactly  similar 
usage  occurs  to  that  in  the  other  account, 

A  similar  remark  applies  to  the  difference 
pointed  out  between  the  creative  energy  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  represented  as  hovering  over 
the  oricrinal  chaos,  and  what  Dr.  Brio-ors  calls 
"  God's  breath  proceeding  from  the  divine 
nostrils  into  the  breath  of  the  creatures,"  * 
[where  does  he  get  this  from?]  "imparting 
to  them  the  breath  of  life." 

Surely  it  is  clear  to  the  dullest  comprehen- 
sion that  Gen.  II.  is  occupied  with  man  and  his 
development,  while  Gen.  I.  deals  with  creation 
generally,  and  that  there  is  not  the  smallest 
warrant  for  asserting  that  God  breathed  into 
the  nostrils  "of  the  creatures."  That  Divine 
act  applied  to  man  alone,  and  is  thus  an  exact 
analogue  of  the  unique  position  assigned  to 
man  in  Gen.  I.  26.  That  two  imao^es  should  be 
used,  one  to  represent  the  Divine  energy  in  its 

*"  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch,"  p.  76. 


DIFFERIXG  SYMBOLISMS.  I  IQ 

communication  to  physical  nature,  and  anotlicr 
to  shadow  forth  the  unique  donation  of  spirit- 
ual and  self-conscious  rationality  to  man,  ap- 
pears most  natural. 

If  we  pass  to  the  next  head  adduced  by  Dr. 
Briees,  we  find  him  still  unfortunate  in  his  re- 
production  of  the  simple  words  of  the  Bible. 
He  tells  of  "a  rainless  ground  without  vege- 
table and  animal  life  "  '='  set  before  us  at  the 
outset  of  the  Jahvistic  narrative,  which  he 
contrasts  witli  the  "abyss"  of  Gen.  I.,  but  he 
omits  to  mention  that  althouo^h  the  around  was 
"rainless"  it  was  not,  therefore,  as  we  might 
be  led  to  infer,  dry,  but  that  a  constant  vapor- 
ous mist  \vas  going  up  from  its  surface,  a  condi- 
tion of  things  not  far  removed  from  the  picture 
of  the  first  account.  So  a^ain  we  are  told  that 
in  the  first  account  six  orders  of  creation  ap- 
pear instantaneously  on  the  mornings  of  six 
creative  days.  Why  not  on  the  evenings  ?  we 
miofht  ask,  or  has  the  exact  hour  been  fixed  in 
some  edition  of  the  text  not  accessible  to  or- 
dinary mortals,  the  special  property  of  the 
critics  ?  This  fundamental  misapprehension  of 
the  significance  of  the  "days"  largely  vitiates 
the  subsequent  arguments  as  to  the  differences 
of  the    order  of  Creation.     Thus    in   contrast 

*"  Higher  Criticism  of  ibu  Ilcxalcucli,"  p.  76. 


I  20  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

with  Gen.  I.  Dr  Briggs  recounts,  shall  I  say 
complains,  that  the  "great  luminaries"  are  in 
Gen.  II.  left  out  of  consideration.  We  may 
add,  too,  the  formation  of  light,  of  the  bright 
firmament,  of  the  seas,  and  the  living  things 
which  swarm  in  them  ;  omissions  sufficiently 
large,  one  would  think,  to  render  very  improb- 
able the  supposition  that  we  have  here  a  sepa- 
rate complete  account  of  the  Creation.  We 
are  then  oiven  as  an  order  of  Creation  in  the 
second  narrative  the  following:  (i)  Adam,  (2) 
trees,  i.e.  presumably,  the  trees  of  the  garden, 
(3)  animals,  (4)  Eve.  Now  it  seems  hard  to 
believe  that  an  impartial  person  reading  the 
narrative  of  Gen.  II.  without  any  critical  prejudi- 
cation, can  fail  to  see  that  we  have  here  no 
independent  order  of  Creation  at  all,  but  a 
supplement  containing  some  back  references 
and  intended  to  teach  three  fundamental  con- 
ceptions : 

(i)  Man's  high  position  (conceded  even 
by  the  cuneiform  writers)  as  in  a  unique  sense 
proceeding  from  the  hand  of  God,  and  made  in 
His  image. 

(2)  The  nature  of  the  environment  with 
which  God  surrounded  him  and  the  relation  in 
which  he  stood  to  it. 


MA  A'  A\D  XA  TUKE.  I  2  I 

(3)  The  due  relations  between  the  sexes 
which  form  tlic  basis  of  human  society  ;  the 
sanction  g-iven  to  marriage  in  the  original  Divine 
l)uri)ose,  as  alike  indissoluble  in  its  character, 
and  as  a  fellowship  extending  into  the  higher 
psychical  and  spiritual  sphere. 

As  a  foil,  so  to  speak,  for  this  last  conception, 
the  writer  recounts  again  the  formation  of  the 
beasts,  and  emphasises  man's  inability  to  find 
in  them  any  fitting  counterpart.  It  is  inter- 
esting in  this  respect  to  notice  that  the  origi- 
nal narrative  of  Gen.  I.  only  in  the  case  of 
man  adds  the  statement,  "  male  and  female 
created  He  them;"'-'  as  though  preparing 
for  the  thought  to  be  expanded  subsequently, 
that  in  the  case  of  man  the  olnious  distinc- 
tion of  sex  received  a  new  office  and  con- 
secration. In  regard  to  the  building  up  of  the 
rib  into  a  woman,  we  must  bear  in  mind  S. 
Chrysostom's  caution,  that  such  revelations  are 
an  accommodation  to  our  weakness,  and  that 
the  actual  methods  of  God's  created  working 
must  always  transcend  human  thought.-j-  As- 
*v.  27. 

f  Ilomilia   in   (".en.  xv..  pajje    140  (ed.  Ciaiime).      opa  t)]v  av^Kvri- 

vfiav.     ...     as  to   the  manner  of  Creation,  fiSvos  fKfiyos  olSfv  6 
Tr/f  Srnjnovpyiav  tpyaffa/xd'os. 


122  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

siiredly  we  may  see  here,  as  the  Patristic  writers 
do,  not  merely  the  lesson  of  woman's  original 
dependence  deduced  by  S.  Paul,  but  also  the 
protecting  consecration  given  to  woman's  whole 
office,  in  the  reproduction  of  the  race  ;  the 
needful  reminder  that  the  accustomed  laws  of 
human  generation  are  but  the  gracious  sharing 
of  God's  Creative  power,  in  the  way  He  Himself 
has  ordained  ;  that  they  are  in  no  sense  neces- 
sary channels  within  which  that  power  is  shut 
up,  save  by  the  loving  condescension  of  God 
himself.  Like  the  Virgin  birth  of  our  Blessed 
Lord  this  narrative  is  as  a  shield  of  purity 
standing  at  the  very  threshold  of  Revelation. 

At  this  point  we  may  notice  the  force  of  the 
double  Name  "the  Lord  God,"  which  occurs 
in  Gen.  II.  III.  only  in  the  Hexateuch,  and 
very  rarely  elsewhere  in  the  Old  Testament, 
reappearing  once  again  in  the  closing  chapters 
of  the  Apocalypse.  It  is  customary  among  the 
critics  to  assume  that  the  occurrence  of  this 
sublime  name  is  due  to  the  Redactor,  who 
wished  thus  to  bind  together  the  Elohistic  nar- 
rative of  P  with  that  of  J.  Truly  a  lame  and 
unmeaning  explanation,  even  if  it  should 
turn  out  to  be  the  best  that  can  be  given. 
But   the    usage   of  the    Old   Testament   sug- 


THE  ABSOLUTE  DI  VINE  NA  ME .  I  2  3 

crests  that  this  double  Name  of  God  exactly 
corresponds  to  the  later  title,  "the  Lord  God 
of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob,"  or  again, 
"the  Lord  God  of  Hosts,"  or  "the  Lord  God 
of  Israel."  The  solemn  absolute  form  seems 
here  used  to  emphasize  the  relation  of  the 
Eternal,  the  God  of  Israel,  to  all  races  of  men 
and  to  all  created  beings. 

An  argument  has  been  based  upon  the  non- 
occurrence of  reference  to  the  details  of  Crea- 
tion in  the  pre-Exilic  books,  but  this  is  easily 
met  (as  Prof.  Sayce  does'-')  by  pointing  to  a  sim- 
ilar non-occurrence  in  the  post-Exilic  books 
also.  It  is  interesting  in  this  respect  to  re- 
mark that  Ps.  CIV.,  which  is  clearly  a  repro- 
duction in  verse  of  Gen.  I.,  entirely  omits  the 
"days"  whilst  retaining  the  classification  of 
the  original  source.  It  would  prolong  this  lec- 
ture unduly  to  notice  further  S.  Augustine's 
unanswerable  reasons  for  regarding  the  "days" 
thus  passed  over  in  the  inspired  commentary 
of  the  Psalter,  not  (as  they  must  be  on  the 
popular  interpretation)  as  the  cardinal  hinges 
of  the  whole  narrative,  but  as  representing  the 
differing  bounds  or  limits  of  the  Divine  self- 
communication  which  correspond  to  each  sev- 

*"  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  p.  82. 


I  24  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

eral  order  of  creation,  and  out  of  which  the 
next  highest  takes  its  beginning.  Thus  the 
"days"  correspond  not  to  a  sequence  of  time, 
but  to  a  sequence  of  order  which  exists 
through  all  time  in  the  mutual  relations  of  the 
creation  itself  This  interpretation  derives  great 
strength  from  an  accurate  translation  of  the 
original  so  as  to  read  with  the  Revised  Version, 
and  the7'e  zuas  evening  aiici  there  was  morning; 
one  day — instead  of  the  familiar  words  of  the 
earlier  Version,  and  the  evening  and  the  morning 
were  the  first  day.  It  thus  becomes  clear  that 
the  intention  of  the  Sacred  Writer  was  rather  to 
define  a  "day"  than  to  mark  a  note  of  time. 
The  evening  and  the  morning,  as  the  etymology 
of  the  original  words  suggest,  correspond  to 
successive  stages  of  the  advancing  light  usher- 
ing in  the  full  day.  The  nature  of  tJie  seventh 
day,  which  must  in  accordance  with  the  teaching 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  be  regarded 
rather  as  a  continuous  state  than  a  limited 
duration  of  time,  points  strongly  in  the 
same  direction.  The  spiritual  lessons  of  abid- 
ing value  in  their  bearing  upon  human  activity 
and  its  inner  consecration  in  the  spiritual  life, 
which  lie  enshrined  in  the  several  "days,"  may 
be  studied  in  the  pages  of  S.  Augustine  ;   or 


VALUE  OF  THE  DUAL  REVELATLOX.        125 

will  be  found  traced  with  great  beauty  and  in- 
sight in  a  too  little  known  modern  book,  "  Man's 
Great  Charter,"  by  the  Rev.  F.  E.  Cog'gin/'^ 

Enough  has  perhaps  been  said  to  form  a 
reasonable  foundation  for  the  conclusion,  that 
whatever  may  be  thediterary  history  of  the  ven- 
erable documents  of  Genesis  I.  and  II.,  they  are 
now  bound  together  by  spiritual  and  essential 
ties,  in  a  close  union  which  it  is  our  irreat  loss  if 
we  fail  to  recognize  or  strive  to  part  asunder. 
The  order  and  harmony  of  Creation,  as  its  sev- 
eral parts  are  fashioned  in  obedience  to  the 
lovinor  will  of  God  and  receive  His  crracious 
benediction  as  very  good,  constitutes  the  very 
revelation  necessary  to  sustain  human  hope 
and  to  keep  alive  human  reverence,  in  pros- 
pect of  the  mystery  of  evil  recorded  in 
Genesis  III.  The  Eden  of  Genesis  II.  is 
the  special  application  of  Genesis  I.  to 
man's  own  nature  and  environment,  whether 
natural  or  social,  and  is  equally  necessary 
to  give  us  hope  in  view  of  the  deadly  in- 
fluence of  our  present  environment  with 
which  we  are  but  too  familiar.  In  the  second 
chapter  also  we  have  a  revelation  of  the  char- 
acter of  God  complementary,  necessarily  com- 

*  See  Appendix. 


126  THE  CREA  TION  AND  PARADISE. 

plementary,  to  that  of  the  first.  Not  now  so 
much  God  in  His  essential  majesty,  but  God  in 
His  condescension  to  humanity,  is  brought  be- 
fore us.  To  separate  these  two  aspects,  and  to 
itrnore  the  latter,  is  the  fundamental  error  of 
Mohammedanism  ;  in  fact,  of  all  monotheistic 
systems  which  do  not  centre  in  the  In- 
carnation. 

In  a  word,  to  recognize  the  true  relationship 
between  these  accounts  is  to  possess  the 
necessary  preparation  alike  for  the  deepest 
revelations  of  God,  and  the  highest  conceptions 
of  life.  To  tear  them  asunder  is  to  inflict  upon 
mankind  serious  spiritual  loss.  To  lessen  In 
any  way  their  influence  Is  to  cut  at  the  very 
root  of  all  true  progress  either  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  God  or  the  regeneration  of  man. 


IV. 


THE   FALL   AND    ITS    IMMEDIATE 
RESULTS. 


LECTURE   IV. 

THE    FALL     AND    ITS    IMMEDIATE    RESULTS. 

"  For  as  through  the  one  vians  disobedience  the 
many  were  made  sinners,  even  so  through  the  obedi- 
enee  of  the  one  shall  the  many  be  made  righteous^ — 
Romans  v.  19. 

We  have  noticed  in  our  consideration  of  the 
first  two  chapters  of  Genesis  the  design  of 
the  sacred  narrative  to  lay  deep  the  founda- 
tions, not  merely  of  faith  in  God,  but  also  of 
that  which  is  ever  for  us  the  correlative  truth, 
the  spiritual  dignity  and  higher  life  of  man. 

The  brief  summary  of  Gen.  i.  26,  as  inter- 
preted and  expanded  by  the  subsequent  nar- 
rative of  the  second  chapter,  has  taken  root 
deep  down  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  formed 
there  that  special  conception  of  Humanity 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  Faith  of  the 
Incarnation;  viz.,  that  man,  because  possess- 
ing unique  moral  and  spiritual  endowments  is 
therefore  capable,  upon  the  basis  of  those  en- 
dowments, of  growing  up  by  the  power  of  a 


I30   THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

divine  fellowship  into  a  fixed  character  like 
to  the  character  of  God.  Not  merely,  as  we 
said,  is  the  spiritual  life  of  men  traced  back 
to  a  gift  proceeding-  directly  from  God,  but  it 
grows  up  under  the  influence  and  power  of  a 
conscious  Divine  fellowship,  while  for  its  sus- 
tentation  and  perfecting  it  rests  back  upon  a 
Divine  gift  of  energy  and  power.  These  great 
and  fundamental  truths,  which  Evangelists 
and  Apostles  have  in  the  light  of  the  Incar- 
nation inworked  into  Christian  thought,  lie 
already  latent  in  the  symbolism  of  these  an- 
cient records  ;  in  the  narrative  of  the  garden, 
where  the  Lord  God  vouchsafed  to  enter  into 
conscious  fellowship  with  man,  and  in  the  midst 
of  which  was  the  tree  of  life.  By  the  power 
of  this  spiritual  fellowship  man  felt  himself 
to  be  completely  differentiated  from  the  lower 
animal  creation,  in  which  he  could  therefore 
find  no  appropriate  counterpart.  And  thus 
upon  the  obvious  general  distinction  of  sex, 
was  built  up  into  the  very  structure  of  Hu- 
manity that  unique  psychical  and  spiritual  re- 
lation between  man  and  woman,  which  was  to 
become  a  sacramental  means  to  the  more  com- 
plete ethical  and  spiritual  development  of  each. 
Thus,  all  through  the  long  dark  centuries 


THE  EXPANDING  HOPE.  131 

until  at  IcnQth  "  the  Liq^ht  of  the  World  "  was 
Himself  fully  manifested,  there  was  kept  alive 
in  the  midst  of  Israel  some  dim  realization  of 
the  coming  glory — glimpses  seen  from  afar  of 
that  unique  dignity  of  man  as  destined  to  be 
knit  to  God  through  the  Incarnate  Person  of 
the  Lord,  designed  to  become  a  very  shrine  of 
God  because  organically  united  into  the  mysti- 
cal body  of  the  Christ.  So,  when  at  length  He 
Himself,  the  Eternal  Word  made  flesh,  fulfilled 
these  ancient  hopes,  and  in  His  Incarnation 
stamped  forever  upon  human  nature  an  inef- 
faceable witness  to  man's  supernatural  life,  the 
message  was  felt  to  be  the  response  to  aspira- 
tions which  had  grown  in  strength  and  clear- 
ness through  many  generations,  aspirations 
which,  in  many  a  dark  day  when  appearances 
seemed  so  contrary,  had  been  nurtured  and  fed 
by  this  first  Gospel  of  hope.  Turn  over  the 
pages  of  the  Psalter,  so  unique  in  the  literature 
of  the  world  as  an  expression  of  the  quickened 
spiritual  aspirations  of  men.  What  are  they  but 
one  continued  and  abiding  witness  to  the  power 
of  this  ancient  message — to  its  revelation  of  that 
original  fellowship  with  God  in  which  men  had 
again  learned  to  recognise  the  true  goal  of  the 
soul,  the  one  fountain  of  its  life  and  peace.  And 


132    THE  FALL  AND  LTS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

not  merely  in  the  aspirations  of  the  Psalter,  but 
in  the  triumphant  songs  of  the  Christian  Eu- 
charist, the  faithful  throughout  the  ages  do 
even  now  hand  on  this  ancient  message.  The 
symbolic  voices  of  Genesis  are  heard  once  more 
re-echoed  in  the  Eucharistic  song  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  "  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord  God 
of  Hosts.  Heaven  and  earth  are  full  of  Thy 
glory."  There  is  the  very  message  enshrined 
in  the  creation  pictures  of  Gen.  i.  "  Glory  be 
to  Thee,  O  Lord  Most  High."  There  the 
realisation  again  in  the  boundless  mercy  of 
God,  even  here  on  earth,  of  the  spiritual  fel- 
lowship of  the  first  Paradise  of  Gen.  ii. 

Thus,  then,  by  this  primitive  Revelation  of 
Nature,  of  Humanity,  and  of  God,  as  they 
stand  mutually  related  to  one  another  in  the 
eternal  purpose  of  creation,  men  were  and  are 
being  weaned  not  merely  from  that  idolatry  of 
the  creature  of  which  S.  Chrysostom  speaks 
(for  if  man  could  find  in  the  lower  creation  no 
helpmeet  for  himself,  how  could  he  recognise 
in  any  of  its  parts  a  fitting  likeness  of  God), 
but,  also,  from  the  degradation  of  his  own  nat- 
ure, which  ever  follows  close  in  the  track  of 
unlawful  worship.  The  Christian  Apostle,  in 
the  fulness  of  time  when  with  a  master's  hand 


THE  NEEDFUL    WARNING.  133 

he  lays  bare  the  inner  secrets  of  the  immoral- 
ities of  heathendom,  did  but  emphasise  the 
warning  of  these  twin  Divine  pictures.  Those 
glowing  sentences  in  which  S.  Paul  shows,  by 
appeal  to  the  long  sad  vista  of  actual  history, 
how  a  godless  secularism  must  ever  be  the  im- 
placable foe  of  human  purity,  the  inner  fountain 
of  its  perpetual  self-degradation,  only  restate 
in  the  full  light  of  adequate  experience  of  the 
Incarnation  and  Mission  of  the  Spirit,  the  same 
teaching  which  lies  already  germinally  con- 
tained in  the  story  of  Eden. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  in  proportion  as 
historical  and  critical  investigation  is  opening 
up  new  questions  as  to  the  derivation  on  their 
human  side  of  one  part  or  another  of  the  sacred 
writings,  God  is  thereby  calling  faithful  souls 
to  a  deeper  study  of  the  inner  spiritual  con- 
nection which  knits  the  whole  Revelation  to- 
gether,  to   a  fuller    realisation   of  that   living 
bond  of  a  common    inspiration    issuing    forth 
from  one  and  the  same  Divine  Spirit.     There 
must  always  be  in  such  critical  investigations 
much   which   for  the   time  being   will    remain 
more  or  less  in  suspense,  and  on  which  a  pro- 
visional judgment  is  alone  possible.      A  stram 
upon  faith  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  is  thus  in- 


134   THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

evitable.  It  is  a  trial  from  which  we  cannot  es- 
cape. It  can  be  met  only  by  a  deeper  realisation 
of  the  spiritual  unity  of  the  whole  Revelation. 
The  necessary  discipline  through  which  we 
have  to  pass  becomes  thus  in  the  loving  Provi- 
dence of  God  a  means  of  revealing  to  us  more 
clearly  than  before  the  exceeding  greatness  of 
the  Divine  treasure  entrusted  to  our  care. 

Passinor  on  now  to  the  narrative  that  we  are 
more  especially  to  consider  this  morning,  that 
of  Gen,  iii.,  we  find  there,  I  believe,  a  foreshad- 
owing of  the  great  principles  involved  in  the 
mystery  of  Our  Lord's  Passion  and  Temptation 
exactly  analogous  to  those  symbolic  glimpses 
we  have  already  traced  of  the  blessed  facts  of 
the  Incarnation  and  of  Pentecost.*  That  whole 
division  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  wdiich  begins 
with  the  third  chapter  and  ends  with  the  "  gen- 
erations of  Terah  "  (this  latter  section  introduc- 
ing to  us  the  great  father  of  the  faithful),  em- 
bodies, as  I  venture  to  think,  those  fundamental 
conceptions  concerning  sin,  its  origin  and  re- 
sults, its  spreading  power  among  men,  and 
God's  eternal  attitude  towards  it,  which  are  the 
necessary  means  of  preparing  us  rightly  to  re- 
ceive the  message  of  the  Passion.     It  seems 

*  See  Lecture  III. 


THE  MYSTERY  OE   TEMPTAT/OAT  I  35 

hardly  too  much  to  say  that  this  key  to  a  right 
understanding  of  the  inner  meaning  of  our 
Blessed  Lord's  atonin"-  work  is  assumed  to  be 

o 

in  our  hands  as  a  necessary  interpreter  of  its 
central  mystery  ;  just  as  it  is  constantly  made 
use  of  in  the  teaching  of  the  inspired  Apostles. 
Whilst  the  neglect  of  the  fundamental  teaching 
of  this  narrative,  when  considering  the  mys- 
teries of  evil  and  of  Redemption,  has  again  and 
again  led  men  into  serious  religious  error. 

Note  then,  first,  the  light  here  thrown  upon 
the  mystery  of  Temptation. 

Evil,  as  we  see,  approaches  man  from  with- 
out. It  has  no  original  place  either  in  human 
nature  or  in  the  creation  of  which  man  is  the 
divinely  constituted  representative  and  head. 
Here  we  have  a  clear  authoritative  condem- 
nation of  Dualism  in  all  its  forms  ;  an  initial 
judgment  upon  a  tendency  which  the  sad  ex- 
perience of  humanity  and  the  present  aspect 
of  things  have  endowed  with  a  terrible  at- 
tractiveness in  the  eyes  of  men.  The  victory 
over  pessimistic  Dualism  which  was  finally 
won  by  the  message  of  the  Incarnation,  had 
already  begun  when  these  teachings  of  Genesis 
were  entrusted  to  the  care  of  God's  ancient 
Church.     But  evil,  though  it  does  not  originate 


136   THE  FALL  AND  LTS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

in    the    creation,   yet   uses    the    creation   as  a 
means  through  which  to  make  its  approach. 

The  riorht  relation  in  which  man  stood  to  the 
created  things  around  him  was  already  clearly 
indicated.  He  was  to  move  amongst  the  crea- 
tion as  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King.  As  Prophet 
to  represent  God  therein,  as  Priest  to  voice  its 
unconscious  service  before  God,  as  King  to 
bring  it  into  an  ever  deeper,  more  harmonious 
fellowship  with  himself,  to  defend  it  against  the 
inroads  of  disorder  and  of  moral  evil.  Clear- 
ly, it  was  in  this  relation  to  the  creation  that 
man's  supreme  responsibility  and  testing  lay  ; 
and  so  it  is  in  this  special  relation  that  the 
Tempter  finds  his  ground  of  attack.  Through 
the  creation  he  obtains  his  channel  of  ap- 
proach. S.  Augustine  finds  in  the  speaking  of 
the  serpent  a  kind  of  demoniacal  possession 
which  he  compares  to  the  present  voicing  of 
the  suggestions  of  the  Tempter  by  evil  men 
or  by  false  prophets.*  At  any  rate,  we  are 
clearly  intended  to  see  an  effort  from  without, 
making  itself  felt  through  the  medium  of  the 

*  De  Genesi  ad  Litt.  xi.  4.  "Quid  ergo  minim  si  suo  instinctu 
diabolus  jam  implens  serpentem,  eique  spiritum  suum  miscens,  eo 
more  quo  vates  dremoniorum  implere  solet,  sapientissimun  eum  reddi- 
derat  omnium  bestiarum  secundum  animam  vivam  irrationalemque 
viventium  ? " 


MAN'S  RELATION  TO   CREATION.  I  37 

creation,  to  seduce  man  from  his  Divinely  ap- 
pointed guardianship.  A  striking-  analogue  is 
it  not  of  that  supreme  trial  in  the  after-times 
in  which  the  devices  of  the  Evil  One  were 
found  finally  wanting,  and  he  himself  baffled 
and  defeated  in  his  triple  attempt  to  withdraw 
our  Lord  from  the  gracious  office  He  had 
come  to  fulfil  as  the  Head  and  Redeemer  of 
our  race.  F"or,  as  has  been  often  pointed  out, 
it  is  in  the  nature  of  the  work  our  Lord  had 
vouchsafed  to  accomplish  for  us,  and  in  the 
voluntary  humiliation  and  sufferings  which  that 
work  involved,  that  the  full  stress  of  the  Temp- 
tation recorded  in  the  Gospel  is  to  be  found. 

But  to  return.  This  original  office  of  man 
towards  the  creation,  as  is  clearly  implied  in 
the  narrative  of  Genesis,  reaches  its  highest 
point  of  concentration  in  his  attitude  towards 
the  two  special  trees  of  the  garden,  the  tree  of 
life  and  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil.  S.  Augustine,  in  speaking  of  the  tree  of 
life,  says  :  "  In  caeteris  lignis  alimentum,  in  illo 
sacramentum."  *  The  other  trees  served  for 
bodily  food.  Here  was  the  means  of  access  to 
the  sustenance  of  man's  higher  nature,  the  gra- 
cious sacramental  food  communicated  through 

*  De  Gen.  ad  Litt. .  viii.  8. 


138    THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

the  earthly  channel  by  which  his  life  of  advanc- 
ing communion  with  God  was  ever  to  be 
mentioned  and  sustained — the  type  in  surely 
no  uncertain  fashion  of  that  consecrated  food 
of  the  Eucharist  through  which  we  receive 
the  spiritual  gifts  of  our  souls'  sustenance,  even 
the  most  Blessed  Body  and  Blood  of  our  Lord. 
The  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil, 
as  its  name  implies,  has  reference  to  man's 
mental  and  spiritual  development,  to  that  aspect 
of  his  character  which  was  to  proceed  out  of 
his  higher  spiritual  life.  The  relation  between 
the  trees  seems  exactly  paralleled  by  that  be- 
tween the  "image"  and  the  "likeness"  men- 
tioned in  Gen.  i.  26.  In  each  case  we  have  an 
interna]  development,  resting  back  upon  a  Di- 
vine gift.  This  mental  and  spiritual  progress 
of  man,  then,  was  conditioned,  so  we  are  told, 
by  one  essential  law.  The  way  by  which  he 
was  to  attain  (through  his  life  of  communion 
with  God  and  by  the  harmonious  contempla- 
tion of  the  creation  entrusted  to  his  charge) 
to  an  ever-deepening  consciousness  alike  of 
good  and  evil,  was  like  unto  the  way  in  which 
God  Himself  knows  these  things.  Not  by 
eating  of  the  tree,  implying  such  a  use  of  the 
creation    as  was    foreign  to  his    trust,    a   use 


THE    TWO  PATHS   TO  K'NOM'LRDGE.  1 39 

involving-  the  actual  experience  of  evil ;  but 
with  the  knowledge  of  perfect  purity  which  at- 
tains to  the  conception  of  evil  only  as  the 
hateful  reverse  of  good.  The  knowledge  which 
thus  comes  to  realise  evil  by  its  very  experi- 
ence of  a  Divine  life  advances  also  of  necessity 
in  that  unchang-inor  hatred  of  it  which  is  the 
essential  character  of  God  Himself.  As  S. 
Augustine  said  long  ago,  in  reference  to  this 
matter,  "  Per  prudentiam  boni  malum  scitur, 
etsi  non  sentitur."*  By  the  careful  guarding 
of  good,  evil  is  known  without  being  experi- 
enced. We  may  add,  too,  that  only  in  this 
way  can  evil  really  be  known.  For  to  know 
evil  we  must  know  goodness.  But,  by  an 
inevitable  law,  each  experience  of  evil  in  our- 
selves blinds  us  to  the  realities  of  goodness, 
and  so  to  the  real  nature  of  evil  also.  Thus 
we  come  to  see  how  the  prohibition  which 
was  the  test  of  man's  fidelity  was  also  the 
necessary  guardian  of  his  progress.  It  pre- 
served him  in  the  only  path  in  which  true 
knowledcfe  either  of  eood  or  evil  could  be 
obtained.  Call  up  to  the  mind  some  true, 
priestly  soul,  one  of  those  which  God  has 
given  in  such  gracious  abundance  to  our  own 

*  De  Gen.  ad  Litt.,  viii.  32. 


I40   THE  FALL  AND  LTS  LMMEDLATE  RESULTS. 

Communion  in  these  latter  years — one  like 
Liddon  or  Pusey,  marked  out  above  all  things 
by  a  holy  indignation  against  sin,  coupled  with 
a  searching  knowledge  of  its  subtle  ramifica- 
tions in  the  heart  of  man — so  may  you  gain  a 
real,  though  but  imperfect  conception  of  the 
depth  and  beauty  of  moral  and  spiritual  dis- 
cernment which  lies  enshrined  in  the  guarding 
of  man's  right  relation  towards  the  tree  of  the 
knowledore  of  o-ood  and  evil. 

The  symbolism  itself  of  the  trees  probably 
rests  back  upon  the  Babylonian  wisdom,  just 
as  we  saw  in  the  case  of  the  narratives  of  the 
Creation.  Amongst  the  broken  fragments  of 
the  Assurbanipal  tablets  Mr.  Boscawen  has 
lately  found  a  fragmentary  reference  to  the  sin 
of  man  in  connection  with  an  apparently  forbid- 
den tree,  which  by  its  external  resemblance 
to  the  account  in  Genesis  makes  it  very  prob- 
able that  the  two  rest  back  upon  a  common 
source.  The  translation  of  the  Boscawen  frag- 
ment given  by  Professor  Sayce  runs  as  fol- 
lows : 

"  In  sin  one  with  another  in  compact  joins. 
"  The  command  was  established  in  the  Garden  of  the 
God. 

*'  The  Asnan  tree  they  ate  they  broke  in  two, 


THE   CUNEIFORM  TRADITION.  14I 

"  Its  Stalk  they  destroyed, 
"The  sweet  juice  which  injures  the  body, 
"Great  is  their  sin  ;  themselves  they  exalted 
"  To  Merodach   their  Redeemer,  he  (the  God  Sar) 
appointed  their  fate."* 

In  the  broken  state  of  this  fragment  we  can 
unfortunately  obtain  no  information  either  as 
to  the  circumstances  which  led  to  the  sinful 
compact,  the  exact  nature  of  the  broken  com- 
mandment, or  the  fate  which  followed  on  human 
transgression.  It  seems  clear,  however,  that 
the  injunction  had  regard  to  the  physically 
harmful  properties  of  the  Asnan  tree  (said  to 
be  a  kind  of  pine),  the  juice  of  which,  as 
the  tablet  directly  states,  "  injures  the  body." 
Here  we  notice  exactly  the  same  phenomenon 
as  before — a  remarkable  parallelism  in  the  set- 
ting of  the  cuneiform  and  the  Biblical  narratives, 
combined  with  the  entire  absence  in  the  former 
of  that  moral  and  spiritual  teaching  which  per- 
meates every  detail  of  the  Biblical  account. 

But  to  continue.  The  assault  of  the  Tempt- 
er is  directed  primarily  upon  the  woman.  The 
purity  of  woman  around  which,  as  we  have  no- 
ticed, a  divine  shield  was  thrown  in  the  mysteri- 

*  The    Babylonian    and  Oriental    Record,    iv.,   11   (1890),  quoted 
in  Sayce,  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.   104. 


142    THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

ous  narrative  of  her  formation,  remains  ever  a 
special  object  of  attack,  whether  by  the  Evil 
One  or  by  evil  men  ;  whilst  on  the  other  hand, 
to  protect  and  to  shield  the  life  of  womanhood 
has  been  through  the  ages  the  one  dominant 
aim  of  the  Church  of  the  Virgin-born  :  may  I 
not  say  the  passionate  impulse  of  all  who  are 
renewed  after  the  pattern  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  object  of  the  Temptation  in  its  three 
divisions  is  to  break  down  in  the  woman  that 
harmony  of  mind  and  purpose  with  the  will  of 
God  which  stood  as  the  sure  guardian  of  the 
portals  of  her  soul,  and  which  must  be  dis- 
possessed before  evil  could  find  an  entrance 
there.  The  Tempter  strove  with  a  force 
which  grew  with  awful  rapidity  as  the  evil 
suggestion  began  to  find  any  foothold  in  her 
heart,  to  snap  the  links  of  loving  gratitude,  of 
humble  trust,  and  reverent  awe,  which  bound 
Eve  in  perfect  loyalty  to  the  will  of  God. 
The  parallelism  between  the  successive  stages 
of  the  temptation  in  the  case  of  Eve  and  in 
that  of  our  Blessed  Lord  is  most  striking. 
The  devil's  first  aim  is  to  implant  in  the  wom- 
an's mind  the  suggestion  of  an  arbitrary  and 
unnecessary  straitness  in  her  appointed  lot. 
**  Hath    God  said,    Ye  shall  not  eat  of  eveiy 


THE  FALL    OF  EVE.  143 

tree    in    the   mrdcn  ? "      Next    follows    close 

o 

upon  its  predecessor  the  suggestion  of  pre- 
sumption, '•  Ye  shall  not  stircly  die!'  On  the 
contrary,  "  God  doth  know  that  in  the  day  ye  eat 
thereof  tJien  yoiir  eyes  shall  be  opened,  and  ye 
shall  be  as  God,  kotowing  good  and  evil!'  As 
soon  as  that  seducing  falsehood  had  gained 
admittance  into  the  soul  of  Eve  the  sad  work 
was  done,  the  triumph  of  evil  secured.  The 
sacred  links  of  lovinof  allecfiance  which  bound 
her  in  holy  troth  to  the  Creator  were  already 
snapped.  Now  she  stood  alone,  her  sweet 
mantle  of  grace  fallen  from  off  her,  nay,  already 
unheeded,  lying  beneath  her  feet.  Nothing 
more  was  necessary  to  add  force  to  the  final 
temptation — desire  of  the  fancied  good.  She 
can  now  be  left  to  herself  while  the  Evil  One 
in  triumph  watches  the  steps  of  his  victim. 
When  the  woman  saw  the  beauty  of  the  tree 
and  pictured  to  herself  its  desirability  as  the 
source  of  knowledge  before  withheld,  her  fall 
was  complete.  "  She  took  of  the  fr nit  thereof 
and  did  eat!'  May  we  not  note  here  a  warn- 
ing much  needed  in  our  own  day,  weighted  as 
it  is  with  the  awful  emphasis  of  a  world's 
transgression :  that  however  much  woman's 
sphere  may  admit  of  legitimate  expansion  in 


144   THE  FALL  AND  LTS  LMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

suitable  directions,  yet  it  can  never  be  identi- 
cal with,  but  must  always  remain  complemen- 
tary to,  that  of  man.  So  that  to  place  woman 
in  positions  which  require  independent  lead- 
ership and  involve  primary  responsibility  is 
both  to  subject  her  to  the  gravest  peril  as  well 
as  to  deprive  her  of  her  own  unique  influ- 
ence and  power. 

The  effects  of  the  victory  of  evil  are  quickly 
seen  —  even  the  divinely  ordered  fellowship 
between  man  and  woman  is  now  turned  into  a 
fulcrum  for  the  second  great  temptation,  and 
becomes  the  means  which  led  to  the  second 
sin.  "  She  gave  also  to  her  husband  with  her^ 
and  he  did  eat!'  Thenceforth  the  die  was 
cast.  The  poison  had  entered  into  humanity 
with  all  its  terrible  power,  reversing  each  law 
which  God  had  laid  deep  in  human  nature  for 
good  by  fashioning  therefrom  a  fresh  source 
of  misery  and  sin. 

The  sad  sequel  is  traced  out  in  the  succeed- 
ing narratives.  There  we  see  laid  bare  for  all 
time  the  multifarious  fruits  of  evil  as  it  inworks 
itself  into  the  whole  life  of  men.  The  familiar 
adage,  "  Corruptio  optimi  pessima,"  finds  its 
fullest  illustration  in  the  pictures  of  the  Book 
of  Genesis.     These  pictures  in  which  we  be- 


THE  EVIL  SPREADING.  U5 

hold  one  good  gift  of  God  after  another-the 
crlorious   bounties   of  Nature,*  the  strong  ties 
of  blood.t  the  blessed  obligation  of  worship.T 
the  advances  of  civilisation.§  the  relation  be- 
tween the  sexes,ll  the  law  of  daily  food.H  the 
bonds  of  social  and  national  life,**  all  in  turn 
transformed  beneath  the  touch  of  evil,  minis- 
tering  in   differing  ways  to  the  spread  of  its 
terrible  power.      No  one  surely  can  read  with 
any  degree  of  spiritual  discernment  these  nar- 
ratives of  the  fall  of  Eve  and  of  Adam,  of  the 
worship   of  Cain  and  its  results,  of  the  arro- 
gance of  Lamech  rejoicing  in  the  added  powers 
which  civilisation  had  given  him,  of  the  inter- 
course of  the  sons  of  God  with  the  daughters 
of  men,  of  the  fall  of  Noah,  or  the  building  of 
the  tower  of  Babel,  and  not  recognise  in  the 
successive   scenes  a  sad  but  faithful  portrait- 
ure of  the  history  of  our  humanity  in  its  lallen 
state      The  warning  is  needed  in  our  own  age 
of  greatly  vaunted  but  largely  godless  civilisa- 
tion, at  least  as  much  as  in  any  that  has  gone 
before;   still  in   many  varied  forms  "the  God- 
dess of  Humanity "  claims    the    adoration    ot 
the    sons    of  men.     Can    we    afford   to    value 

*Gen.ui.6.  +-6.12.  t  i-  5-  §-23.^4. 

I|vi.2.  1li-^-2i.  **xi.4. 


146    THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS, 

lightly  this  Divine  and  humbling-  revelation  of 
the  real  loathsomeness  which  is  hid  there, 
concealed  beneath  the  outward  beauty  of  her 
flowing  skirts  ?  Can  we,  the  Divinely  commis- 
sioned guardians  of  human  souls,  ever  allow 
those  hallowed  portraits  by  which  from  earli- 
est childhood  such  vitally  essential  truths  are 
brought  home  to  the  hearts  of  all,  gentle  or 
simple,  learned  or  unlearned,  to  men  of  every 
differing  degree  of  civilisation  or  enlighten- 
ment, to  be  in  any  degree  weakened  in  their 
force  through  our  neglect  or  failure  to  appre- 
ciate their  true  aim  and  power  ?  Dare  we 
take  the  awful  responsibility  of  allowing  their 
spiritual  force  to  be  blunted  by  any  supposed 
inferences  from  the  results  of  mod^n  criticism? 
It  cannot  be.  On  the  contrary,  tlie  Church  of 
the  twentieth  century,  I  am  bold  to  predict,  will 
point  her  children  with  a  quickened  reverence, 
and  yet  deeper  spiritual  insight  than  that  to 
which  we  have  attained  to  these  divine  portrai- 
tures, as  she  traces  in  them  the  counterparts  of 
the  revelation  given  in  the  Passion  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  Christ.  Like  the  blessed  Apostle, 
she  will  find  there  foreshadowed  the  manifold 
workings  in  each  age  of  that  ancient  woe, 
whereby  through  the  disobedience  of  the  one 


J* 


S/JV  UNMASKED.  147 

the  many  were  made  sinnerSy  that  with  deeper, 
truer  gratitude  she  may  appropriate  the  sav- 
ing power  of  the  obedience  of  that  Blessed 
One,  through  whom  the  awful  stream  has 
been  reversed,  and  the  many  shall  be  made 
riojitcous. 

But  to  return  to  the  narrative  itself.  Be- 
tween the  account  of  the  Fall  and  the  succes- 
sion of  portraits  which  illustrate  the  varied 
growth  of  evil  proceeding  therefrom,  there 
is  a  pause.  The  great  transgression  must 
first  be  shown  to  us  as  it  stands  unmasked 
in  the  presence  of  God.  The  sophistries  of 
Satan  are  seen  at  their  true  worth  when 
brought  to  the  bar  of  a  Divine  questioning. 
The  enormity  of  human  sin  must  be  mani- 
fested in  the  light  of  the  just  sentence  of  God. 
In  the  judgment  passed  upon  the  serpent  we 
can  trace  already  the  dim  outlines  of  the  Cross, 
as  it  stands  uplifted  against  the  dark  back- 
ground of  evil.  The  necessary  law  of  our 
Redemption,  whether  in  our  Lord's  atoning 
work  or  in  the  sanctifying  ministration  of  His 
Church,  stands  already  clearly  indicated,  that 
only  in  one  way — by  the  voluntary  acceptance 
of  suffering — can  the  awful  power  of  sin  be 
overcome. 


148    THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

It  might  surely  have  been  supposed  that 
this  majestic  passage,  in  which  faithful  souls 
have  ever  loved  to  see  the  inviolable  purity 
and  the  all-searching  judgment  of  God  com- 
bined with  the  manifestations  of  His  loving 
mercy;  that  this  "  Protevangel,"  as  it  has 
been  so  rightly  called,  would  have  been  safe 
from  the  superficial  disparagement  of  modern 
criticism.  But  it  has  not  been  so.  President 
Harper,  commenting  upon  this  section  of  Gen- 
esis, tells  us  "  that  so  far  as  concerns  the  attri- 
butes of  God,  the  representation,  however  in- 
terpreted, is  not  so  clear  and  distinct  "  *  as 
in  P,  as  to  which  document  we  are  informed 
that  any  thought  of  Divine  "jealousy,  so  com- 
mon throughout  antiquity,  is  entirely  foreign." 
Whilst  here,  "  when  man  has  eaten  the  fruit 
and  thus  gained  one  superhuman  attribute,  viz., 
wisdom  (iii.  7),  there  is  danger  that  he  will 
gain  another  such  attribute,  viz.,  immortality 
(iii.  22),  and  that  this  may  not  happen  he  is 
driven  forth  from  Eden."  f  "  Gained  super- 
human wisdom  "  indeed !  Where,  we  may 
well  ask,  save  in  the  lying  sophistries  of  the 
Tempter,  is  there  any  vestige  of  such  a  con- 

*  Hebraica,  Oct.,  i88S-July,  1889,  vol.  v.,  p.  30. 
f  Hebraica,  Oct.,  1888-July,  1889,  vol.  v.,  p.  31. 


THE    WAGES   OF  SJAT.  1 49 

ception  ?  Dr.  Harper  fortunatel)'  gives  the 
reference,  so  that  we  may  be  in  no  uncertain- 
ty as  to  the  authority  on  which  he  relies. 
We  are  referred  to  Gen.  iii.  7,  and  there 
we  are  plainly  told  the  real  nature  of  the  su- 
perhuman wisdom  which  they  had  gained. 
"  So  the  eyes  of  the)ii  both  were  opened,  and  they 
ktiew  that  they  zvcre — naked  "  !  !  So  in  the 
awful  poverty  of  their  new-born  shame,  "  they 
sezved  Jig-leaves  togethe7',  and  made  themselves 
aprons''  This,  then,  was  the  superhuman 
knowledge  they  had  won,  which  criticism  rep- 
resents as  exciting  the  jealousy  of  God.  The 
bitter  consciousness  of  their  own  shame,  the 
knowledge  which  was  itself  the  dark  shadow 
of  a  hateful  blindness,  was  settling  down  upon 
their  whole  being.  The  phrase  in  iii.  22, 
which  Dr.  Harper  does  not  cite  in  this  con- 
nection, "  Behold  the  nian  is  beco??ie  as  one 
of  lis,  to  knoiv  good  and  evil,''  when  taken,  as 
it  should  be,  in  the  light  of  its  context,  is  seen 
to  refer  not  to  a  real  advance  in  wisdom,  but 
to  the  rending  of  merciful  limitations,  which 
shielded  the  development  of  man's  knowledge  ; 
to  the  premature  and  illicit  acquisition  of  the 
knowledge  of  evil  by  experience,  which,  like 
every  species  of  unlawful  knowledge,  does  not 


I50   THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

really  impart  wisdom  to  the  possessor,  but 
rather  destroys  it.  Surely  we  are  entitled 
to  protest  against  all  this  as  not  merely  a 
grossly  inaccurate  but  an  utterly  unjustifiable 
method  of  dealing  with  Holy  Scripture.  As 
soon  might  one  expect  to  hear  the  sacred 
volume  branded  as  atheistic  on  account  of 
the  well-known  utterance  of  the  fool  in  the 
Psalter,  as  to  find  the  merciful  Creator  sus- 
pected of  an  unworthy  jealousy  of  the  shame 
of  his  poor  fallen  creatures.  But  Dr.  Harper 
does  not  stand  alone  in  this  matter.  His 
comparatively  guarded  statement  is  entirely 
thrown  into  the  shade  by  Professor  Addis  in 
his  recent  volume  entitled  "  the  Documents  of 
the  Hexateuch."  This  writer  bluntly  puts 
the  critical  position  as  follows :  "  Man,"  he 
says,  "  had  learnt  wisdom  by  eating  the  for- 
bidden fruit,  and  had  become  Yahweh's  rival. 
Hence  Yahweh  was  afraid  that  man  havinor 
learnt  to  distinguish  physical  good  from  evil, 
would  eat  of  the  tree  of  life  and  so  ward  off 
death  and  decay  for  ever.  Yahweh  is  far  from 
omniscient,  and  he  is  also  envious.  The 
same  idea  of  the  Divine  jealousy  is  prominent 
in   Herodotus,"   etc.*     It  is  hardly  necessary 

*  Documents  of  the  Hexateuch,  pp.  6,  7. 


MERC  Y  LV  JUDGEMENT.  I  5  I 

to  say  how  entirely  destitute  of  any  shadow 
of  foundation  the  whole  conception  is.  The 
immortality  from  which  God's  sentence  of  ex- 
pulsion shielded  man  was,  like  the  knowledge 
he  had  acquired,  a  loss  and  not  a  gain.  It 
is  clear  from  the  sacred  text  that  man  had, 
prior  to  his  fall,  the  right  to  eat  of  the  tree  of 
life  as  a  sacramental  means  of  sustaining  that 
life  of  God  within  him,  in  which  life  lay  the 
gift  of  a  true  immortality.  But  when,  by 
his  own  act,  the  links  which  bound  his  soul  in 
communion  with  God  were  severed,  and  the 
purity  of  his  nature  was  defiled,  the  sacramen- 
tal means  became  changed  into  a  fresh  source 
of  his  condemnation.  To  have  approached  it 
now  in  the  condition  in  which  man  had  fallen, 
with  the  law  of  spiritual  death  working  in  his 
members,  might  possibly  (if  we  are  right  in  so 
interpreting  the  text)  have  prolonged  his  bodily 
existence.  But  to  have  permitted  this  would 
have  been  not  merely  the  infringement  of  a  Di- 
vine sentence,  it  would  have  been  a  terrible  ag- 
gravation of  human  misery — nothing  less  than 
to  fasten  upon  him  a  life  in  the  same  relation 
to  the  immortality  for  which  he  was  originally 
destined  as  the  illusory  knowledge  he  had 
acquired  stood  to  that  wisdom  he  was  orio-i- 


.152    THE  FALL   AND  LTS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

nally  designed  to  gain.  For  as  S.  Athanasius 
so  beautifully  teaches  in  the  "  De  Incarnatione 
Verbi,"  *  physical  death  is  but  the  first  and 
most  striking  external  sign  of  the  inward  pro- 
cess of  dissolution  which  sin  causes  in  the 
whole  nature  of  man.  The  law  of  death  slow- 
ly but  surely  works  itself  into  the  whole  man, 
spirit  and  soul  as  well  as  body.  The  Divine 
sentence  runs,  "■For  hi  the  day  that  thou  eatest 
thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die."  Not,  Thou 
shalt  be  put  to  death,  as  of  a  finished  act,  but, 
"  Thou  shalt  surely  die,''  as  of  a  process  of 
death  which,  though  already  begun,  yet  awaits 
its  own  ultimate  manifestation  in  the  spiritual 
and  psychical  as  much  as  in  the  bodily  sphere. 
The  first  death  of  the  body  is  but  the  significant 
type  of  that  "  second  death,"  which  marks  the 
final  consummation  of  the  developing  results 
of  evil  ;  and  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is 
equivalent  to  a  mere  cessation  of  existence. 
Moreover,  immortality  in  its  true  and  highest 
sense  must  not  be  regarded  simply  as  an  origi- 
nal gift  to  humanity,  but  as  the  ultimate  reward 
of  man's  rightful  development,  which  was  to  be 
crowned  at  length  by  the  predestined  fellow- 
ship with  the   Eternal  Word,  who  is   Himself 

*  See  Sections  5  and  6. 


Dn'/.v/-:  i.iMiTATioxs  or  evil.  153 

the  Life.  To  refer  once  again  to  the  teaching 
of  S.  Chrysostom.  In  his  commentary  on  this 
passage  he  clearly  indicates  that  the  ejection 
from  Paradise  was  rather  the  sign  of  God's 
care  than  merely  of  His  wrath,  lest  man  should 
sin  perpetually.* 

The  same  merciful  judgment  is  shown  in 
the  other  sentences  also.  In  that  of  physical 
death,  with  its  necessary  humbling  of  human 
pride  and  limitation  of  the  power  of  human 
wickedness,  or  in  the  separate  sentences  of 
labour  and  toil  on  man,t  of  subordination  and 
travail-pain  on  woman,}  in  all  of  which  may  be 
clearly  seen  not  merely  the  vindication  of  God's 
holiness  by  the  due  and  appropriate  punishment 
of  each  offence,  but  also  (humanity  having  be- 
come what  it  has),  we  can  recognise  therein 
gracious  barriers  against  the  oncoming  flood 
of  evil,  which  else  might  have  burst  upon  the 
race  with  resistless  force. 

But  Mr.  Addis  goes  further:  Not  only  is 
Yahweh  jealous,   he    is   also  "  far   from   omni- 

*  ""flffTe  KaJ  Tit  ■K\r](riOv  Kol  airfvauTi  Toi>  irapoSei'troi;  irpoiTTd^ai  Karoi- 
Ke'iv  rhv  fKeldef  iKircirruiKi'iTa.  /leyi'erTTjt  Krfiinnvlas  (j-nfj.uov  ^v,  'iva  Koi  t\)v 
4k  t7)<:  flea?  vir6ixvr\(riv  ex??)  "aJ  tov  (vrevdfv  KtpSous  anoKivrj,  Koi  ^tjSj 
irrtdun'iav  T7)j  (t>i\o(wias  fX'^",  f«l  «!«  ■'vyx<i>'wv,  KararoXuiiffri  t))s  tov 
^v\ov  $pti(Tfci!i." — Homilia  in  Gen.  xviii.,  3,  ed.  Gaume,  p.  1S2. 

t  lloni.  XVIII.,  3.  ^  Horn.  XVIII.,  4. 


154   THE  FALL  AND  LTS  LMMEDLATE  RESULTS. 

scient."*  The  reference  is  here  clearly  to  the 
Divine  questioning  of  Adam  and  Eve,  by 
which  the  sinful  pair  MAere  brought  to  acknowl- 
edge their  guilt.  What !  has  Mr.  Addis  never 
heard  of  a  father  questioning  his  child,  even 
though  he  may  have  the  fullest  proof  and 
knowledge  of  that  child's  wrongdoing  ?  Surely 
it  is  far  more  true  to  experience  to  say  with  S. 
Chrysostom,  in  his  magnificent  seventeenth 
Homily  on  Genesis,  perhaps  one  of  the  finest 
examples  we  possess  of  the  eloquence  and 
spiritual  discernment  of  that  great  preacher  of 
the  Ancient  Church  ;  God  in  His  merciful  con- 
descension "  questions  them  not  as  one  that 
was  ignorant  but  being  acquainted  with  all, 
that  He  might  manifest  His  own  love  for  men 
He  condescends  to  their  weakness  and  sum- 
mons them  to  confession  of  their  sins."t  In 
this  case  at  least,  the  opinion  of  the  ancient 
Father  seems  far  wiser  and  truer  than  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  modern  critic. 

*  Documents  of  the  Hexateuch,  p.  7. 

f  Homilia  in  Gen.  xvii.  5  (Ed.  Gaume,  p.  166).  The  argument  is 
elaborated  in  the  first  seven  sections  of  the  Homily.  Cf.  the  following 
magnificent  passage  from  section  3  :  "  /xaKpOoixel  koI  drfxerat,  koI 
ipwTa,  Koi  airdKpifTiv  Sex^Tai,  Kol  TrdAtv  ipuTO,  fxouovou)(l  fls  airoKoyiau 
avrhy  iKKaXovfieuos,  'Iva  apop/j.^v  \al3wu,  rrjv  o'tKeiav  (piXavQpwTrlav  Ka\ 
fiera,  tV  TOcravTr]v  napafiaffiu  irepl  avrhi'  e7rjSei|rjTO<. " 


THE  DOUBLE  SENTENCE.  l5S 

Nor  should  we  omit  to  notice  the  intimate 
and  vital  connection  between  the  twofold  sen- 
tence on  our  sin  and  the  double  aspect  of  hu- 
man nature  set  before  us  in  Gen.  i.  26,  which  we 
have  noted  above  ;  the  "  image"  in  which  man 
was  created  corresponding  to  his  unique  en- 
dowments ;  the  "likeness,"  on  the  other  hand, 
to  the  character  he  was  to  attain  by  virtue  of  a 
Divine  fellowship.  Each  portion  of  the  orig- 
inal gift  is  visited  by  an  appropriate  sentence 
after  the  fall.  In  the  sentence  of  death  is  in- 
volved the  gradual  weakening  and  ultimate 
deprivation  of  the  endowments  or  "  image  ;" 
whilst  the  loss  of  the  Divine  fellowship  which 
lay  at  the  back  of  the  "likeness"  is  plainly 
symbolized  in  the  mandate  of  expulsion  from 
Eden. 

Nor  does  it  seem  to  have  been  a  mere  acci- 
dental resemblance  that  when  the  Blessed  One 
as  our  representative  tasted  death  for  every 
man,  and  so  voluntarily  took  to  Himself  that 
first  penalty  of  our  sin.  He  should  also  have 
condescended  to  stoop  to  our  alienated  posi- 
tion in  His  fellowship  with  us  sinners,  so  that, 
enwrapped  in  the  veil  of  thick  darkness  He 
uttered  forth  the  bitter  cry  of  isolation.  My 
God,  viy  God,  why  hast   Thou  forsaken  7ne  f 


156    THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

To  sum  up,  then,  our  detailed  examination 
of  Gen.  iii.  The  first  three  chapters  of  Gen- 
esis have  been  seen  to  be  bound  to  one  another 
by  vital  and  essential  spiritual  bonds,  such  as 
weld  them  together  into  an  inseparable  or- 
ganic unity.  On  their  literary  side  they  appear 
to  show  strong  marks  of  common  derivation 
from  a  primal  source,  which  itself  underlies  the 
Babylonian  wisdom.  The  differences  pointed 
out  by  critics  may,  so  far  as  they  have  real  ex- 
istence at  all,  as  reasonably  be  supposed  to 
adhere  in  the  original  tradition  (which  in  its 
later  form  has  marked  points  of  contact  with 
all  three  chapters)  as  in' a  difference  of  authors. 
It  seems  difficult  to  understand  how  such  dif- 
ferences can  be  incompatible  with  unity  of 
authorship  on  the  one  hand,  and  yet  be  found 
consistent  with  the  work  of  an  intelligent  re- 
dactor on  the  other.  This  much,  however,  at 
least  may  be  said.  If  narratives  so  vitally 
bound  together  as  Gen.  i.,  on  the  one  side,  and 
Gen.  ii.  and  iii.  on  the  other,  are  really  the 
work  of  different  authors  with  an  entirely  sep- 
arate literary  history,  it  only  serves  to  throw 
into  yet  greater  prominence  the  marvel  of  their 
complete  ethical  and  spiritual  unity.  Nor  can 
we  stop  there.    These  narratives  are  not  merely 


THE  FINGER    OF   GOD.  I  57 

thus  united  in  themselves,  they  stand  in  equally 
close  connection,  as  we  have  seen,  with  the  sec- 
tions which  immediately  succeed  them.  Their 
teachings  are  assumed  in  every  page  of  the 
subsequent  Old  Testament  Revelation.  They 
underlie  the  whole  substance  of  the  Gospel. 
They  form  the  fruitful  basis  of  the  most  devel- 
oped Christian  theology,  the  needed  monitor 
and  guide  for  human  action  amid  the  perils  of 
the  nineteenth  Christian  century,  just  as  much 
as  in  the  circumstances  of  ancient  Palestine.  As 
we  come  to  ponder  these  things  the  conclusion 
will,  I  believe,  deepen  within  us  into  an  irre- 
sistible, unalterable  conviction,  that  whatever 
may  be  the  secret  of  the  literary  history  of 
these  opening  chapters  of  Genesis,  they  cer- 
tainly bear  upon  their  forefront  the  evident 
marks  of  the  very  finger  of  God. 

And  with  this  conviction  we  can  patiently 
and  hopefully  bear  the  burden  of  any  difficul- 
ties connected  with  these  early  sections  which 
in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge  we  are 
unable  completely  to  solve,  such  as,  for  example, 
the  questions  raised  by  the  genealogies  in  chap, 
v.,  and  the  numbers  therein  contained,  which 
appear  as  insoluble  upon  the  critical  as  upon 
the   traditional    methods.     Or  again,  the  true 


158    THE  FALL  AND  LTS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

interpretation  of  the  narrative  which  stands  at 
the  opening  of  chap.  vi.  still  remains  an  open 
question,  although  it  is  possible  that  fresh  light 
may  at  any  time  be  thrown  upon  it  by  further 
Babylonian  discoveries.  I  am  unable  to  ex- 
amine in  detail  the  alleged  differences  which 
have  weiorhed  with  some  advanced  critics  in  di- 
viding  the  Jahvistic  narrative  into  at  least  three 
sources,  so  replacing  it  by  Ji,  J2,  J3.*  The 
reasons  alleged  for  such  subdivision  appear 
quite  insufficient  to  bear  the  weight  put  upon 
them,  and  as  they  do  not  seem  to  have  won 
any  large  measure  of  general  acceptance,  even 
in  critical  circles,  it  may  suffice  to  give  them  this 
passing  mention.  As  to  the  great  table  of  the 
nations  in  chap,  x.,  the  cuneiform  discoveries 
have  in  a  multitude  of  cases  dispelled  the  un- 
certainty which  previously  surrounded  much  of 
its  contents,  and  have  thus  abundantly  verified 
its  historical  value  as  an  authentic  chart  of  the 
ancient  world.  It  seems  probable  that  we  do 
not  yet  possess  sufficient  data  to  go  much 
further  than  this,  or  to  determine  at  all  accu- 
ratelv  the  date  to  which  it  belonors.  Professor 
Sayce   places   its    composition   in   the    age    of 

*  For  the  details  of  this  analysis  and  the  grounds  upon  which  it  is 
based  see  Budde,   Die  Biblische  Urgeschichte. 


DIFFICULT  QUESTIONS.  1  59 

Ezekiel.  It  gives,  he  says,  "  a  geographical 
chart  or  picture  of  the  Jewish  world  as  it  exist- 
ed in  the  seventh  century  B.C."*  The  question 
has  in  any  case  no  bearing  upon  the  date  of  the 
rest  of  the  book.  Chap.  x.  is  complete  in  itself. 
Its  insertion  may  well  have  been  the  work 
of  the  Ezrahite  Redactor,  illustrating  from  the 
then  condition  of  the  world  the  division  of 
men  after  the  flood  as  recorded  in  chap.  xi. 
If  this  be  so,  it  will  also  explain  an  apparent 
anachronism  in  the  fact  that  this  table  of  sep- 
arated nationalities  precedes  the  narrative  in 
Gen.  xi.,  whilst  it  would  seem  at  first  sight 
more  natural  that  it  should  follow  it.  On  this 
point  we  may  well  be  content  to  await  the  ver- 
dict of  fuller  knowledge. 

The  consideration  of  the  narrative  of  the 
Deluge  will  form  part  of  the  next  Lecture. 

Meanwhile  even  though  we  should  assume 
that  the  Church  may  never  be  able  to  complete- 
ly pierce  the  secret  of  the  human  development 
of  these  Divine  pictures,  at  least  we  may  hold 
with  sure  conviction  that  they  will  ever  abide 
with  her  as  cherished  fountains  of  teaching,  of 
reproof,  of  correctio7i,  and  instruction  in  right- 
eousness.    That  she  will  see  In  them  through 

*  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  153, 


l6o    THE  FALL  AND  ITS  IMMEDIATE  RESULTS. 

all  the  Christian  ages  a  permanent  embodiment 
of  the  working  of  that  prophetic  spirit  of  which 
it  stands  recorded,"  The  testimony  of  Jesus  is 
the  spirit  of  prophecy  T 


V. 


THE    DELUGE    AND    THE 
PATRIARCHS. 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  DELUGE  AND  THE  PATRIARCHS. 

"  These  all  died  in  faith,  not  Jiaving  received  the 
promises  but  having  seen  and  greeted  them  from  afar, 
and  having  confessed  that  they  were  strangers  and 
pilgrims  on  the  earth. — Hebrews  xi.  13. 

The  narrative  of  the  Deluge  seems  intended 
to  occupy  a  mediate  position  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis. 

On  the  one  side  it  closes  the  series  of  pict- 
ures in  which  have  been  set  before  us,  first, 
the  essential  principles  of  Creation,  and  then 
the  sad  story  of  the  gradual  inworking  of  evil 
into  human  nature  and  human  society.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  stands  forth  as  a  signal  in- 
stance of  God's  merciful  and  gracious  election, 
and  so  prepares  us  for  that  contraction  of 
stand-point  which  marks  the  remaining  sec- 
tions of  the  Book,  devoted  as  they  are  to  the 
portraiture  of  the  elect  ancestors  of  a  chosen 
people. 

Thus,  then,  the  Deluge  occupies  a  mediate 
163 


1 64         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

position  between  that  ancient  world  in  its  ad- 
vancing guilt  and  darkness,  unrelieved  by  any- 
continuous  Revelation  of  God,  and  the  whole 
stupendous  drama  of  God's  electing  grace;  and 
this  whether  we  consider   it  in  the   sphere  of 
Judaism  preparing  the  way  for  the  Incarnation, 
or  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church  ush- 
ering in  at  the  last  the  final  Judgment  of  God. 
As  the  great  act  of  Judgment  on  the   ancient 
world  it  forms  the  necessary  background  of  the 
whole  series  of  God's  wondrous  revelations  of 
grace,  for  it  disclosed  for  all  time  the  Eternal 
Judgment   of  God,     His   unchanging    attitude 
towards  human   sin  ;     and   thus   furnished   an 
abiding  setting,  through  which  sinful  men  can 
rightly  view  the  gracious  purposes  of  Redemp- 
tion.    The  Deluge,  with  its  clear  piercing  note 
of  Judgment  upon  sin,  guards   through  all  the 
aees  the  true  siornificance  of  the  Passion  of  the 
Christ.     For  it  compels  men  to  trace  in   the 
Cross  the  eternal  revelation  of  the  wrath  of 
God  against  moral  evil,  the  fullest  manifesta- 
tions of  God's  absolute  righteousness,  as  well 
as  the  supreme  appeal  of  His  love.      Thus  the 
character  of  God  is  vindicated  from  all  appear- 
ance of  indifference  to  sin.     The  way  is  pre- 
pared for  the  Revelation  of  Himself  in  our  suf- 


rilE    UNIQUE  JUDGMENT.  1G5 

ferinQ:  flesh  as  men  are  thus  tauijht  to  look  on 
from  that  supreme  manifestation  of  love  to  the 
great  Judgment,  to  the  disclosure  of  God's  final 
and  absolute  verdict  upon  human  action,  when 
the  true  measure  of  each  shall  be  fully  shown,  as 
it  has  all  the  time  been  clear  and  open  in  the 
sight  of  God.  Hence  the  signal  and  unique 
Judgment  of  men  recorded  in  Genesis  has  an 
abiding  moral  and  spiritual  significance,  a  les- 
son of  essential  import  to  all  generations.  We 
must  assign  to  it  the  same  absolute  position 
in  the  "  Prologue  "  to  the  subsequent  Revela- 
tion as  the  narratives  of  the  Creation  and 
the  Fall. 

Passing  now  from  the  deeper  significance  of 
the  narrative  to  its  external  form,  a  similar  re- 
lationship to  that  previously  noticed  exists  be- 
tween the  inspired  accounts  and  the  cuneiform 
tablets  of  Babylonia.  Again,  unfortunately,  the 
Assurbanipal  tablets  are  in  some  respects  in- 
complete, although  in  a  far  less  degree  than  in 
the  case  of  the  "  Creation  "  tablets.  We  have 
adequate  evidence  that  the  Babylonian  account 
existed  in  differing  forms,  and  this  witness  of  the 
cuneiform  tablets  is  corroborated  by  the  later 
testimony  of  Berossus,  preserved  in  Greek  lit- 
erature.    A  comparison  of  the  Scriptural  and 


l66         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

Babylonian  records  of  the  Deluge  conducts  us 
to  conclusions  exactly  agreeing  with  those  de- 
duced in  the  previous  instances.  Not  only  are 
polytheistic  and  mythological  elements  promi- 
nent in  the  one  case  and  replaced  by  a  purer 
monotheistic  conception  in  the  other  ;  but,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  the  historical  facts  are 
in  the  Sacred  Records  regarded  in  a  new  light, 
and  so  become  the  channel  of  permanent  eth- 
ical and  spiritual  truth. 

As  specimens  of  portions  of  the  cuneiform 
story  which  are  lacking  in  the  Biblical  account 
we  may  note  the  account  of  the  sorrow  and  in- 
dignation caused  amongst  the  gods  by  the 
coming  of  the  flood. 

"  In  the  heaven, 

"  The  gods  feared  the  deluge,  and  hastened  to  ascend 
to  the  heaven  of  Anu. 

"  The  gods  cowered  Hke  a  dog  lying  in  a  kennel. 

"  Istar  cried  like  a  woman  in  travail. 

"  The  great  goddess  spake  with  a  loud  voice. 


"  The  gods  wept  with  her  because  of  the  spirits  of 
the  underworld. 

"  The  gods  sat  dejected  in  weeping,  their  lips  were 
covered."  * 

*Sayce :  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  iii. 


THE   CUXEIFORM  LEGEND.  1 6/ 

Or  once  again  the  companion  picture  of  the 
wrath  and  fierce  anger  of  the  great  goddess 
Ishtar  at  the  rash  act  of  Bel  in  causing  such  a 
calamity. 

"The  great  goddess  lifted  up  the  mighty  bow  which 
Anu  had  made  according  to  his  wish. 

"  These  gods,  by  my  necklace  never  will  I  forget. 

"  Those  days,  I  will  think  of  them  and  never  will  for- 
get them. 

"  May  the  gods  come  to  my  altar  (but)  let  not  Bel 
come  to  my  altar,  since  he  did  not  take  counsel  but 
caused  a  flood  and  counted  my  men  for  judgment."  * 

Other  features  of  interest  are  the  allusion  to 
the  questionings  of  the  people  as  to  the  reason 
for  building  the  ark  ;  the  mention  of  the  thick 
darkness  which  enwrapped  the  earth  at  the 
time  of  the  Deluge  itself;  and  the  closing 
scene  in  which  Bel  blesses  Sisosthros  and  his 
wife,  and  grants  them  to  become  as  the  gods. 
It  may  be  noted  also  that  Sisosthros,  who 
seems  to  hold  a  kingly  position,  brings  into 
the  ship  he  had  built  besides  the  living  creat- 
ures and  his  family,  all  his  slaves  and  hand- 
maids as  well  as  the  sons  of  his  people.  As  to 
the  reason  of  the  flood  no  consistent  account  is 

*  Sayce  :  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  112. 


l68  THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

given.  The  writer  appears  to  hover  between 
the  wickedness  of  men,  the  secret  desiorn  of 
the  gods,  and  the  impulsive  perversity  of  Bel. 
Possibly  we  have  here  reminiscences  of  separ- 
ate versions  of  the  story  which  were  then  sub- 
sequently combined.  The  account  itself  is  of 
extreme  antiquity,  although  recopled  by  order 
of  the  great  King  Assurbanipal.  Professor 
Sayce  places  its  probable  composition  about 
B.C.  2350,  and  describes  it  as  already  ancient  in 
the  days  of  the  Patriarchs.* 

If  now  we  turn  to  the  critical  analysis  of 
the  Biblical  account  and  examine  the  so-called 
Elohistic  and  Jahvistic  sections  in  the  light 
of  the  cuneiform  records,  our  results  quite  cor- 
roborate the  similar  conclusions  drawn  in  re- 
gard to  the  pictures  of  Creation  and  Paradise. 
Even  more  obviously  than  before  each  ac- 
count, Elohistic  and  Jahvistic,  is  seen  to  have 
independent  marks  of  common  ancestry  with 
the  Babylonian  Epic. 

Thus  as  points  of  importance  common  to 
the  Elohist  and  the  cuneiform  writer  we  note 
the  following  :  The  pitching  of  the  ark  with 
pitch,  the  detailed  specification  of  its  dimen- 
sions and  construction  ;  the  specified  duration 

*  Sayce  :  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  113. 


RESEMBLANCES    IVITIf  P  AND  J.  1 69 

of  the  Stormy  flood  of  waters  (in  the  cunei- 
form records  six  days,  in  P  one  hundred  and 
fifty)  ;  the  grounding  of  the  ark  in  the  moun- 
tains ;  the  looking  forth  in  each  case  after  the 
flood  had  ceased,  and  the  mention  of  the  bow 
in  connection  with  the  averting  of  any  similar 
catastrophe. 

The  special  points  of  agreement  of  the  Jah- 
vist  with  the  cuneiform  writer  are  as  follows  : 
The  closing  of  the  door  of  the  ship  after  the 
entrance  of  Noah ;  the  narrative  about  the 
sending  forth  of  the  three  birds  with  the  re- 
turn of  all  but  the  third  ;  the  offering  of  the 
sacrifice  after  the  flood  and  its  acceptance  ;  the 
assurance  which  is  implied  in  the  cuneiform 
inscription,  but  directly  given  in  the  Biblical 
narrative,  that  a  judgment  so  sweeping  and 
universal  should  not  again  be  visited  upon 
mankind. 

Even  the  bare  enumeration  of  these  points 
of  coincidence  will  suffice  to  show  how  evenly 
they  are  distributed  between  the  two  accounts. 
These  phenomena  place  the  conclusion  be- 
yond doubt  that  each  narrative  stands  in  a 
similar  relationship  to  the  Babylonian  tradition. 
Thus,  for  example,  it  is  impossible  to  suppose 
that  the   Jahvist    used   material  derived   from 


170         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

ancient  sources  and  of  "  Palestinian  origin," 
whilst  the  Priestly  account  "  was  copied  or 
rather  paraphrased  from  the  cuneiform  tablets 
in  the  age  of  the  Babylonian  exile."  *  Inde- 
pendent historical  reasons  have  already  been 
given  which  make  it  in  the  highest  degree 
improbable  that  such  an  hypothesis  would  in 
any  case  correctly  explain  the  connection  be- 
tween the  two  sets  of  documents.!  All  the 
historical  evidence  points  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  original  of  the  various  recensions  of 
this  great  epic  of  Assurbanipal  was  in  circu- 
lation prior  to  the  age  of  the  Patriarchs,  and 
may  therefore,  with  the  highest  degree  of 
probability,  be  assumed  to  have  been  known  to 
the  Patriarchs  or  their  descendants  during  the 
period  of  their  prosperity  in  Egypt  under  Se- 
mitic rule,  and  with  hardly  less  probability  to 
Moses  also.  The  points  of  similarity  already 
noticed  are  very  striking.  Professor  Sayce 
indicates  three  points,  viz.,  the  shutting  the 
door  of  the  ark,  the  sending  forth  of  the  birds, 
and  the  sacrifice  of  Noah,  in  which  he  thinks 
that  the  polytheistic  original  was  corrected  by 
the  inspired  Jahvist  writer.     This  conclusion  in 

*  See  Sayce  :  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  Ii6. 
f  See  Lecture  III.,  pp.  no,  in. 


ITS  HIGir  ANTIQUITY  171 

the  limited  state  of  our  knowledfre  as  to  the 
exact  point  at  which  the  two  streams  diverge 
can,  however,  hardly  be  pressed.  But  the  evi- 
dence does  at  least  clearly  point  to  a  contact 
of  the  Jahvistic  and  Elohistic  accounts  with 
the  Babylonian  tradition  under  conditions  of 
no  great  divergence  in  the  two  cases,  whilst 
from  historical  and  other  grounds  we  may 
with  a  high  degree  of  probability  place  the 
time  of  such  contact  in  the  Mosaic  or  pre- 
Mosaic  period. 

Certain  points  in  the  Biblical  account  are 
held  by  Professor  Sayce  to  point  strongly  to  a 
non-Babylonian  source,  and,  as  he  thinks,  to  a 
Palestinian  origin.*  It  seems  open  to  ques- 
tion, however,  whether  the  points  selected 
would  not  be  equally  well  explained  by  the 
Egyptian  environment  of  the  author.  The 
substitution  of  an  "  ark  "  for  a  "  ship  "  is  at 
least  as  likely  to  be  Egyptian  as  Palestinian, 
especially  as  the  word  used  for  the  ark  has 
marked  affinities  with  the  lancruaofe  of  ancient 
Egypt.  The  nature  of  the  gopher-tree  is  not 
certainly  known.  If  it  be  correctly  identified 
with  the  cypress,  this  w^ood,  although  not  in- 
digenous in  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  is  yet  in  use 

*  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  117. 


172  THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

in  Egypt.*  whilst  the  oHve  is  common  in  Egypt 
as  well  as  in  Palestine. f  The  argument  from 
the  month  in  which  the  flood  is  stated  to  have 
begun  seems  somewhat  too  precarious  to  bear 
any  great  weight.  There  appears,  therefore, 
as  much  to  be  said  in  favour  of  the  hypothesis 
of  Mosaic  authorship  as  for  that  of  a  later  com- 
position in  Palestine,  e.g.,  in  the  Solomonic  age. 
No  presumption  arises  against  a  Mosaic 
authorship  from  the  non-occurrence  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  Flood  in  Egyptian  literature,  for 
it  is  a  commonplace  that  the  undoubted  Mo- 
saic literature  and  institutions  have  no  analogy 
with  Egyptian  religious  thought  or  systems. 
The  fact  that  Egyptian  literature  stands  prac- 
tically alone  amongst  the  records  of  ancient  peo- 
ples as  the  one  literature  in  which  no  memory 
of  the  Deluge  has  been  preserved  is  explained 
by  the  obvious  consideration  that  in  Egypt 
alone,  the  flooding  of  the  country  is  a  benefit 
rather  than  a  misfortune ;  whilst  an  Egyptian 
narrative  has  actually  been   found  describing 

*  "  The  weeping  willow,  myrtle,  elm,  and  cypress  are  found  in  the 
gardens  and  plantations." — Article  "  Egypt,"  in  Encycl.  Brit.,  by  R. 
S.  Poole. 

f  "  The  fruit,  seeds,  or  leaves  of  the  .  .  .  olive  have  been 
found  in  the  tombs  of  Thebes." — Wilkinson  :  Ancient  Egypt  (abridged 
ed.,  Murray),  vol.  ii.,  p.  36. 


WIDELY  SPREAD   TRADITIONS.  1/3 

the  slaughter  of  men  as  an  act  of  Divine  judg- 
ment, which  seems  to  point  to  an  Egyptianized 
recension  of  the  Babylonian  Epic*     The  well- 
known  wide  diffusion  of   the  tradition  of  the 
Flood,  even  though  it  becomes  necessarily  lo- 
calized in  the  hands  of  the  separate  peoples, 
points  strongly  to  the  original   unity  of  men 
and  to  the  historical  reality  of  the  event  itself. 
Such  traditions  are  found  not  merely  amongst 
the  Semitic  peoples  but  in  India,  China,  Greece, 
Persia,  and  amongst  a  number  of  different  sav- 
age races  originally  inhabiting  our  American 
continent.     Thus  from  many  converging  lines 
of  evidence  we  may  deduce  a  very  strong  prob- 
ability that  the  inspired  Biblical  account  rests 
back  on  a  common  historical  tradition   which 
was  in  the  possession  of  the  Israelites  at  least 
as  early  as  the  Mosaic  period. 

This  conclusion  is  not  necessarily  at  variance 
with  the  hypothesis  that  two  separate  versions 
of  the  Deluge  are  combined  in  our  present  nar- 
rative. It  is  of  course  possible  that  each  may 
represent  a  form  assumed  in  later  times  by  the 
original  Mosaic  account.  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind,  however,  that    the  comparison    already 

*  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology,  t.  iv.,  pp.  i-ig, 
cited  in  Lenormont,  Les  Origines  de  I'llistoirc,  p.  448. 


174         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

made  with  the  cuneiform  records  certainly  does 
not  strengthen  this  possibiHty.  We  must  there- 
fore consider  the  arguments  for  such  division 
on  their  own  merits,  remembering  that,  to  say 
the  very  least,  they  derive  no  support  from  ex- 
ternal sources. 

It  may  be  premised  at  the  outset  that  the 
analysis  would  present  much  less  difficulty  un- 
der the  assumption  which  until  quite  recently 
was  universally  made  (that  P  represented  the 
original  account  and  J  the  later  supplemental 
one),  than  when  the  reverse  is  taken  to  be 
the  case.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
analytical  division  itself  was  made  when  the 
former  and  more  natural  hypothesis  was  every- 
where accepted ;  and  that  it  has  since  been 
engrafted  bodily  on  the  newer  and  precisely 
opposite  view.  Thus,  the  Jahvistic  narrative 
contains  no  mention  of  the  command  to  build 
an  ark,  or  of  the  nature  of  its  construction.  It 
commences  with  the  bare  statement,  ''And  the 
Lord  said  tinto  Noah,  Co7ne  thou  and  all  thy 
house  into  the  arkT  Clearly  this  could  not 
have  been  the  original  commencement  of  J's 
account.  We  must  therefore  conclude  that 
the  Redactor  here  rejected  the  original  Jah- 
vistic narrative  in  favour  of  the  Elohistic  docu- 


THE  ASSUMED   REDACTOR.  175 

ment.  As  the  Jahvist  is  uniformly  picturesque 
and  flowing",  and  his  narrative  consequently 
attractive,  it  is  hard  to  see  why  this  sweeping 
rejection  should  have  taken  place.  Or  again, 
why,  if  the  Elohistic  account  had  preserved  ad- 
ditional details  (though  it  seems  to  have  none 
which  are  not  paralleled  in  the  cuneiform  tra- 
dition) they  should  not  have  been  introduced 
into  the  existing  narrative  of  J.  The  account 
as  it  now  stands  in  Genesis  is  predominantly 
that  of  the  Elohist,  with  the  insertion  of  tliree 
main  Jahvistic  fragments  —  the  supplemental 
injunctions  given  to  Noah  when  about  to  enter 
the  ark,  the  narrative  about  sending  forth  the 
birds,  and  that  in  regard  to  Noah's  sacrifice  and 
its  acceptance.  We  are  thus  forced  to  con- 
clude that  if  the  analysis  has  any  foundation  at 
all,  the  main  portion  of  the  Jahvistic  narrative 
was  rejected,  although,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  it  must  have  covered  practically  the  same 
ground  as  the  Elohistic  document.  This  sup- 
position seems  most  improbable,  and  is  more- 
over directly  contrary  to  the  usage  of  the 
Redactor  elsewhere  in  Genesis.  In  the  other 
sections  where  the  two  documents  are  com- 
bined we  find  exactly  the  reverse  phenome- 
non,  that    only   fragments    from    the    Priestly 


*: 


1/6         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

writer  are  embedded  in  the  narrative  of  J 
and  E. 

Passing  now  from  these  general  considera- 
tions to  examine  the  specific  grounds  on  which 
the  critical  division  rests,  the  two  main  points 
adduced  are  the  alleged  duplication  of  the  nar- 
rative of  the  entrance  into  the  ark,  and  of  the 
account  of  the  actual  Deluge  itself  As  to  the 
first  of  these,  the  duplication  is  purely  imagi- 
nary. We  have  quite  naturally  a  command  to 
build  the  ark  for  the  reception  of  Noah  and  the 
living  creatures,  followed,  after  the  long  inter- 
val of  time  needed  for  its  construction,  by  the 
definite  injunction  to  enter  into  the  ark  now 
built.  With  this  later  command  is  given  a  spe- 
cific indication  of  seven  days  as  the  interval 
yet  to  elapse  before  the  final  catastrophe,  and 
precise  directions  as  to  the  distinction  to  be 
observed  between  clean  and  unclean  animals. 
What  could  be  more  natural  than  this  ?  The 
somewhat  disconnected  reduplications  in  the 
actual  narrative  of  the  Deluge  itself  are  easily 
explicable  from  the  desire  of  the  narrator  to 
throw  into  strong  emphasis  the  central  catas- 
trophe. 

A  serious  objection  arises  to  the  critical 
division    from    the   radical    divergence    it    has 


RIl'AL    C//KO.VOLOG/ES.  I  77 

produced  between  the  two  documents  as  to 
the  duration  of  the  Flood.  The  analysis  arbi- 
trarily recjuires  the  forty  days  of  chapter  viii. 
6,  between  the  first  subsidence  of  the  waters 
and  the  sending  forth  of  the  birds,  to  be  made 
identical  with  the  forty  days  of  chapter  vii. 
12,  during  which  t/ic  rain  was  tipoii  the  earth  ; 
so  causing-  a  complete  antagonism  between 
the  duration  assigned  to  the  Flood  in  the 
Jahvist  and  Elohistic  accounts  respectively. 
If,  then,  as  is  assumed  in  the  assigned  dates 
of  the  two  documents,  the  Jahvistic  account 
had  been  current  for  centuries,  and  the  Flood 
had  thus  been  Ion"-  known  to  have  lasted 
some  sixty  days,  it  is  hard  indeed  to  see  what 
should  have  induced  a  Priestly  writer  to  set 
himself  in  flagrant  opposition  to  this  accepted 
chronology,  and  to  claim  for  the  Deluge  a 
duration  of  a  whole  year.  Even  the  fruitful 
assumption  of  unconscious  idealisation  of  his- 
tory so  frequently  made  in  reference  to  the 
Priestly  writer  seems  to  fail  us  entirely  here  in 
furnishing  a  solution  of  the  puzzle.  The  Elohist 
could  not  have  been  influenced  by  the  cunei- 
form tablets,  for  these  assign  to  the  Flood  a 
total  duration  of  only  fourteen  days.  But  even 
if  this  point  be  conceded  as  in  some  way  explica- 


178  THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

ble,  it  seems  still  more  extraordinary  that  when 
the  later  narrative  had  in  its  turn  won  for  itself 
acceptance,  a  Redactor  should  go  out  of  his 
way  to  insert  in  a  consistent  and  acknowledged 
account  the  absolutely  contradictory  figures  of 
the  now  discredited  Jahvist  writer.  Here  is 
a  plain  case  of  direct  contradiction  between  the 
two  accounts.  We  are  asked  to  believe  that 
a  Redactor,  presumably  inspired,  harmonised 
these  contradictory  sets  of  figures  in  the  subtle 
and  misleading  way  in  which  they  now  stand 
connected  in  the  Genesis  narrative,  instead  of 
selecting  either  the  one  chronological  system 
or  the  other.  The  contradiction  is  so  glaring 
that  it  cannot  have  escaped  notice.  Such  an 
estimate  of  the  Redactor  seems  inconsistent 
with  his  possession  of  either  common  sense  or 
common  honesty.  In  truth,  the  analytical  hy- 
pothesis bristles  with  insuperable  difficulties 
as  soon  as  we  attempt  to  realise  to  ourselves 
the  process  by  which  the  assumed  narratives 
reached  their  present  form.  It  is  a  compara- 
tively easy  thing  to  take  the  narrative  as  it 
stands  and  to  explain  in  any  particular  case  the 
supposed  duplication,  but  to  proceed  from  this 
point  to  accept  the  results  which  flow  from  the 
assumed  division,  whilst  endeavouring  to  recon- 


THE  MAXIFESTATIOy  OF  GOD.  1 79 

cile  them  with  the  sacred  character  of  the  nar- 
rative or  with  the  great  ethical  and  spiritual 
truths  with  which  it  is  undoubtedly  charged, 
forms  a  task  of  the  most  arduous  and  difficult 
character. 

Further,  it  can  hardly  be  questioned  that  in 
the  critical  examination  of  this  narrative  far  too 
litde  weight  has  been  given  to  its  theological, 
as  distinct  from  its  purely  historical  side.  The 
main  object  of  the  inspired  writer  was  not  ac- 
complished by  merely  imparting  to  his  readers 
correct  historical  information  as  to  the  doings 
of  Noah  or  the  natural  phenomena  of  the  Del- 
uge. The  inspired  history  of  Noah  is  not  one 
in  which  God  is,  as  it  were,  thrown  in  to  form 
a  dark  mysterious  background  to  the  earthly 
story.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  mind  of  the 
writer  historical  detail  is  throughout  subordi- 
nate to  his  central  aim,  to  reveal  the  character 
of  God  and  the  immutable  principles  which 
underlie  His  dealings  with  sinful  men.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  a  Rationalist  like  Eichorn 
or  De  Wette,  it  may  appear  an  incomprehen- 
sible reduplication  that  God  should  first  have 
given  specific  direction  to  his  servant  Noah  as 
to  the  building  of  the  ark,  indicating  in  general 
terms   the  object  it  was   to  serve,  in   order  to 


l8o         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

supply  a  reasonable  ground  of  faithful  obedi- 
ence to  so  startling  and  toilsome  an  injunction  ; 
and  that  long  years  afterwards,  when  at  last 
his  toil  was  over,  he  should  have  received  a 
further  Divine  Revelation  telling  him  to  take 
the  next  step  in  the  venture  of  faith,  to  entrust 
himself  and  his  dearest  to  this  novel  structure, 
to  utilise  the  short  interval  that  still  remained 
ere  the  flood  came,  in  the  detailed  arrange- 
ments necessary  to  carry  out  the  Divine  inten- 
tion. Surely  from  no  fair  standpoint  can  this 
be  really  classed  as  mere  iteration.  Again, 
the  duplication  of  the  picture  of  the  wickedness 
of  the  antediluvian  world  seems  perfectly  nat- 
ural when  we  remember  that  in  chapter  vi.  9, 
with  the  Elohistic  narrative  we  are  beginning 
a  new  section  of  the  book.  The  results  of  the 
preceding  section  are  summarised  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  new  one,  just  as  in  precisely  the 
same  way  we  find  a  double  mention  of  the 
three  sons  of  Noah.  What  can  be  more  inse- 
cure, than  a  theory  that  postulates  two  separate 
documents  because  of  the  doubled  statement 
as  to  the  wickedness  of  the  world,  and  yet  itself 
assigns  to  one  and  the  same  document  the 
equally  doubled  statement  concerning  the  three 
sons  of  Noah.     Clearly  both  duplications  are 


THE  DIVINE   NAMES.  l8l 

perfectly  natural  and  neither  needs  any  explana- 
tion at  all.  The  two  cases  are  exactly  analo- 
gous, and  if  it  has  never  been  thought  neces- 
sary to  assume  separate  sources  in  the  second 
case,  why  is  it  essential  in  the  first? 

To  take  another  point.     The  distribution  of 
the  Divine  Names  in  this  section,  the  primal 
ground  of  the  analysis,  is  entirely  appropriate 
to  the  subject-matter  in  each  case,  and  flows 
naturally  therefrom.     Where  the  relationship 
of  God  to  all  mankind  is  the    predominating 
conception  we  find  the  name  Elohim  employed. 
Again,  when  the  special  relationship  of  grace 
in   which   God   stood    to   Noah  is   prominent, 
there,  just  as  we  might  expect,  the  Covenant 
name  Jahveh  is  found.     Thus  take  the    suc- 
cessive Jahvistic    sections  ;    the    command    to 
enter  the  ark,  the  gracious  act  of  protection 
implied  in  the  Lord's  shutting  Noah  in,  the  ac- 
ceptance of  his  sacrifice  and  the  recorded  Di- 
vine purpose  that  such  a  Judgment  should  not 
again  be  visited  upon  the  earth.      Here  clearly 
in  each  case  Noah  is  contemplated  as  the  object 
of  God's  electing  grace;    as  the  link  on  which 
hang  the  saving  purposes  of  redemption.      In 
the   Elohistic   sections    the    outlook   is   wider. 
The  opening  words,   ''And  God  looked  upon 


l82  THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

the  earth  /  a7id  it  was  co7'rupt,  for  all  flesh 
had  corrupted  his  way  tipon  the  earth.  And 
God  said  unto  Noah,  The  end  of  all  flesh  is 
come  before  me,  for  the  earth  is  filled  with 
violence  through  them,  and,  behold,  I  will  de- 
stroy them  with  the  earth,''  *  plainly  indicate 
a  verdict  given  to  Noah  upon  human  society 
in  general  as  it  existed  before  the  Flood.  Or 
again,  the  Elohistic  section  in  chapter  ix.  con- 
templates Noah  not  now  as  the  ancestor  of  the 
elect  people  but  as  the  progenitor  of  a  new- 
world,  gathering  up  into  himself  all  future 
generations  of  men.  This  is  indicated  quite 
distinctly  in  the  opening  charge,  '■'■  Be  fruitful 
and  imtltiply  and  replenish  the  earth.''  Whilst 
a  little  later  the  all-embracing  rainbow  is  made 
the  sign  set  in  the  heavens  of  ''an  everlasting 
covenant  betzveen  God  and  every  living  creat- 
ure of  all  flesh!'  The  standpoint  of  this  con- 
cluding section  is  unmistakably  clear.  It  is 
the  standpoint  which  naturally  suggests  the 
name  of  God  which  is  used. 

To  sum  up,  then.  With  sincere  deference  to 
the  great  authorities  who  are  ranged  on  the 
other  side  there  seem  valid  grounds  for  claim- 
ing that  whether  or  not,  as  Professor  Sayce  says, 

*  Gen.  vi.  12,  13. 


NEED   OF  re-examination:  1 83 

*'  the  literary  analysis  which  has  given  us  a 
Jehovist  and  an  Elohist  and  a  Priestly  Code 
must  be  supplemented  or  replaced  by  an  anal- 
ysis of  the  Book  of  Genesis  into  Babylonian, 
Canaanite,  and  other  similar  elements ;  "  *  at 
least  it  is  necessary  that  that  analysis  itself 
should  be  throughout  re-examined,  both  from 
the  literary  standpoint  and  also  from  the  theo- 
logical position  of  Catholic  Christendom.  At 
present  it  can  hardly  escape  the  judgment 
which  so  disinterested  a  critic  as  Mr.  Matthew 
Arnold  passes  upon  the  rationalistic  concep- 
tion of  Scripture  generally ;  that  "  it  makes 
far  more  difficulties  than  it  solves,"  and  again, 
"  it  rests  on  too  narrow  a  conception  of  the 
history  of  the  human  mind."  f  We  may  add 
on  "  too  narrow  a  conception  "  of  the  spiritual 
greatness  and  unique  aim  of  the  Holy  Script- 
ures. Meanwhile  the  conclusion  seems  amply 
justified  that  the  basis  upon  which  the  whole 
analytical  division  rests  is  much  too  precarious 
to  admit  of  our  building  upon  it  any  important 
conclusions  whatever. 

As  we  pass  now  to  the  Patriarchal  history, 
these  questions  of  literary  analysis  occupy  a 

*  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  171. 
\  Literature  and  Dogma,  p.  149. 


1 84         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

position  of  comparatively  minor  importance. 
With  the  exception  of  some  genealogical 
tables  and  two  or  three  narratives  like  those 
concerning  the  institution  of  circumcision  or 
the  death  of  Sarah,  only  fragmentary  scraps 
here  and  there  are  assigned  to  the  Priestly 
writer.  The  great  mass  of  the  narrative  is 
fairly  divided  between  the  Jahvist  and  the 
second  Elohist.  As  these  writers  are  assumed 
to  have  been  nearly  contemporaneous,  writ- 
ing, the  one  in  the  Northern  Kingdom  and  the 
other  in  the  Southern,  about  the  ninth  cen- 
tury B.C.,  the  division  is,  except  on  purely  liter- 
ary grounds,  comparatively  unimportant.  The 
striking  parallelism  between  the  two  narratives 
may  fairly  be  held  to  imply  a  common  original, 
which  may  or  may  not  be  identical  with  one 
of  them,  but  the  date  of  which  must  be  prior 
to  the  division  of  the  monarchy  and  the  con- 
sequent separation  of  the  kingdoms.  Schultz, 
for  example,  places  J  in  the  Solomonic  period. 
The  dates  usually  assigned  to  these  closely 
interrelated  documents  are  conditioned  by  the 
fact  admitted  on  all  hands,  that  the  narrative 
as  we  have  it  was  well  known  to  the  great 
Prophets  of  the  eighth  century.  Beyond  this 
the   evidence  for  the  dates  assigned  is  almost 


THE  r.iTRrARcir.M  in  STORY.  185 

£ 

entirely  subjective — whilst  if  J  and  K  (as 
seems  probable  if  the  division  itself  be  as- 
sumed) rest  back  on  a  common  original,  we  are 
absolutely  without  any  means  of  determining- 
the  date  of  that  original,  Mosaic  or  otherwise. 

We  shall  then  omit  any  further  discussion 
in  regard  to  J  and  E,  and  proceed  to  consider 
a  far  more  essential  matter  which  claims  our 
attention.  I  refer  to  the  question  as  to  the 
alleged  unhistorical  character  of  the  whole 
Patriarchal  history  raised  by  the  extreme  crit- 
ical school,  and  in  particular  by  Kuenen  and 
Wellhausen. 

According  to  Kuenen  "the  narratives  in 
Genesis  present  us,  not  with  historical  per- 
sonages, but  with  personifications"  *  of  Israel 
itself  and  of  the  nations  round  about.  "They 
teach  us  what  the  Israelites  thought  as  to  their 
affinities  with  the  tribes  round  about  them,  and 
as  to  the  names  of  their  own  settlements  in  the 
land  of  their  abode."  f  So,  too,  Wellhausen  to 
similar  effect :  "  In  the  patriarchal  legend  the 
ethnographic  element  is  always  predomi- 
nant." J  "The  legend  itself  for  the  most  part 
is    the  product  of  a  countless  number  of  nar- 

*  Kuenen  :   Religion  of  Israel,  Engl,  ed.,  p.  in. 

\  Ibid.,  p.  113.  X  Prolegomena,  p.  320. 


1 86         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

ratives  unconsciously  modifying  each  other's 
work."  *  With  regard  to  Abraham,  it  is  true, 
Wellhausen  acknowledges  some  difficulty  in 
satisfactorily  explaining  his  existence  on  ethno- 
graphical principles.  Not  bearing  "  the  name 
of  a  people  like  Isaac  and  Lot,  he  is  some- 
what difficult  to  interpret."  f  We  must  not, 
however,  any  the  more  on  this  account  con- 
sider him  "  as  a  historical  person  "  J — he  might 
with  more  likelihood  be  regarded  as  "  a  pure 
creation  of  unconscious  art."  §  So,  too,  the 
story  of  Joseph  is  in  considerable  part  the  "  free 
work  of  poetry."  Truly  this  is  a  clever  way 
of  getting  rid  of  an  unpleasantly  insoluble  dif- 
ficulty—  thus  to  sublimate  the  whole  of  the 
facts  into  the  mysterious  cloud-land  of  uncon- 
scious and  therefore  unknown  art.  A  better 
illustration  could  hardly  be  found  of  what  has 
been  well  described  as  the  omnipotence  of  a 
German  professor's  ink.  Even  a  reverent 
critic  like  Schultz,  who  acknowledges  that  we 
cannot  in  point  of  fact  picture  to  ourselves  the 
rise  of  the  Hebrew  religion  in  any  other  way 
than  the  Biblical  account  does,||  when  it  repre- 

*  Prolegomena,  p.  327.  \  Ibid.,  p.  320. 

X  Ibid.  §  Ibid.,  p.  320. 

II  Schultz  :  Old  Testament  Theology,  p.  no. 


TIIF.    ETHNOGRAPiriC  HYPOTHESIS.  1 87 

sents  Abraham  as  called  out  of  the  country  of 
his  birth  into  an  unknown  land,  as  entering^ 
into  a  covenant  of  circumcision  with  the  God 
of  his  fathers,  who  appears  to  him,  as  bearing 
trial  upon  trial,  receiving  revelation  upon  reve- 
lation, promise  upon  promise,  until  he  passed 
away  honoured  of  God  and  man,  whilst  thus 
acknowledging  that  the  facts  connected  with 
the  Hebrew  religion  require  exactly  such  a 
series  of  events  as  we  find  recorded  in  the  his- 
tory of  Abraham,  yet  contends  that  we  must 
"  leave  it  undetermined  in  the  present  state  of 
tradition  how  far  the  name  of  Abraham  and 
the  general  sketch  of  his  life  are  to  be  consid- 
ered historical."  "* 

As  soon,  then,  as  we  have  overcome  our  first 
natural  repugnance  to  regarding  these  inimi- 
table pictures  which  have  won  the  admiration 
of  unnumbered  generations  as  the  singularly 
happy  outcome  of  a  countless  number  of  frag- 
mentary attempts  at  political  idealisation,  we 
naturally  ask  on  what  grounds  we  are  to  ac- 
cept so  startling  and  unlovely  an  hypothesis. 
We  may  conveniently  group  the  reasons  given 
under  three  heads  : 

I.   Considerations  based  on  the  difficulty  of 

*  Schultz  :    Old  Testament  Theology,  p.  95. 


l88  THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

transmitting  historical  accounts  of  the  Patri- 
archal period  to  the  date  assigned  for  the  com- 
position of  J  and  E. 

2.  Reasons  growing  out  of  the  character  of 
the  patriarchal  narratives  themselves ;  and, 
lastly, 

3.  The  confirmation  which  this  hypothesis 
affords  to  the  similar  assumption  made  as 
to  the  Priest's  Code,  and  in  particular  to 
the  non-existence  of  the  law  of  the  one  sanct- 
uary prior  to  the  days  of  Josiah  or  there- 
abouts. 

Let  us  briefly  notice  each  of  these  points. 

With  regard  to  the  difficulties  of  transmis- 
sion the  recent  discoveries  at  Tell-el-Amarna 
have  completely  destroyed  whatever  force  they 
were  supposed  to  possess.  We  now  know 
that  there  was  no  more  difficulty  in  transmit- 
ting the  records  of  the  time  of  Abraham  to 
Moses  than  in  the  similar  transmission  of  the 
"  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Israel  and  Judah  " 
in  the  days  of  the  Israelitish  monarchy.  The 
primal  ground  of  the  hypothesis  having  fallen 
through,  owinof  to  our  better  knowledo-e  of  the 
circumstances  of  the  Patriarchal  period,  the  sub- 
jective considerations  next  to  be  considered 
are  correspondingly  weakened  in  force.  Stand- 


ITS  FAfLURE.  1 89 

ing  as  they   now   do   severely  isolated,  their 
weakness  is  much  more  easily  seen. 

We  have  already  noted  how  completely  the 
ethnographical  hypothesis  breaks  down  when 
applied  to  the  history  of  Abraham — a  large 
and  fundamentally  important  part,  surely,  of 
the  whole  narrative.  Moreover,  it  fails  just  as 
signally,  as  Wellhausen  practically  confesses, 
when  applied  to  the  case  of  Joseph.*  As  Mr. 
Watson,  who  has  so  carefully  investigated  this 
question  in  his  capital  book,  "  The  Book  of 
Genesis  :  a  True  History,"  well  says, 

"  If  Judah  and  Joseph  were  to  change  places  in  the 
patriarchal  narrative,  we  might  get  a  remarkable  antici- 
pation of  the  history  of  later  times.  There  was  a  tribe 
which  surpassed  its  fellows  in  moral  and  religious  qual- 
ities. There  was  a  tribe  which  like  Joseph  was  separated 
from  its  brethren,  and,  standing  alone,  was  the  more  faith- 
ful representative  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  That  tribe 
was  Judah,  not  Joseph.     Although  that  tribe  had  abun- 

*  "  Joseph  here  (in  the  blessintj  of  Jacob)  appears  always  as  the  pil- 
lar of  the  North-Israelite  monarchy.  .  .  .  The  story  of  Joseph, 
however,  in  so  far  as  historical  elements  can  be  traced  in  it  all,  and 
not  merely  the  free  work  of  poetry,  is  based  on  much  earlier  events, 
from  a  time  when  the  union  was  first  being  accomplished  of  the  two 
sections  which  together  became  the  people  of  Israel.  The  trait  of  his 
brothers'  jealousy  of  him  points  perhaps  to  later  events." — (Prole- 
gomena, p.  323.)  This  vague  oscillation,  with  the  appeal  to  "  the  free 
work  of  poetry  "  as  an  ultimate  refuge,  surely  amounts  to  the  sur- 
render of  the  ethnographic  theory. 


1 90  THE   DELUGE   AiYD    THE   PATRIARCHS. 

dant  opportunity,  had  it  so  willed,  of  manipulating  the  na- 
tional tradition  to  its  own  honour  and  glory,  yet  we  find 
in  the  facts  of  Genesis  the  very  negative  of  any  such 
purpose.  It  is  the  progenitor  of  the  rival  and  faithless 
Kingdom  of  Ephraim  who  stands  forth  as  the  chaste 
and  faithful  deliverer  of  his  brethren.  The  record  of 
Judah,  on  the  other  hand,  is  stained  by  undisguised  im- 
purity and  evil."* 

A  similar  difficulty  occurs,  only  in  a  more 
acute  form,  when  we  try  to  picture  the  history 
of  Levi  as  the  idealisation  thrown  back  into 
the  Patriarchal  period  of  the  history  and 
character  of  that  priestly  tribe.  A  certain 
resemblance  at  first  sight  and  in  broad  out- 
line there  undoubtedly  is  (as  might  indeed  be 
expected)  between  the  careers  of  Jacob  and 
Esau  and  those  of  the  nations  which  they 
represent.  A  moment's  reflection,  however, 
will  show  how  impossible  it  is  to  conceive  of 
an  Israelite,  in  the  days  of  the  monarchy  illus- 
trating the  relations  of  his  people  to  the  Edom- 
ites,  whom  they  were  again  and  again  subdu- 
ing, by  the  cringing  artifices  to  which  Jacob 
had  to  resort  in  order  to  pacify  the  wrath  of 
Esau.  It  seems  unnecessary  to  pursue  the 
inquiry  into  further  detail.     The  hypothesis  of 

*  Watson  :  The  Book  of  Genesis  :  a  True  History,  p.  20i. 


VERDICT  01'    ARC/LEO  LOGY.  IQI 

political  personification  helplessly  breaks  down, 
and  our  first  indignant  revulsion  from  the 
vandalism  which  it  involves  is  fully  justified  by 
the  results  of  minute  examination. 

In  truth  this  whole  method  of  accounting  for 
ancient  narratives  is  already  out  of  date.  Dis- 
coveries like  those  of  Schliemann  at  Troy  and 
the  other  verifications  of  ancient  records  which 
have  crowded  upon  us  within  the  last  two 
decades  have  completely  altered  the  accepted 
views  as  to  the  formation  of  early  traditions. 
A  distinguished  English  archaeologist  has 
lately  summed  up  the  changed  conclusions  on 
this  matter  in  these  unmistakable  terms:  "The 
more  we  look  into  fairly  early  legends,  the  more 
disinclined  we  become  to  say  that  there  is 
nothing  substantial  in  them."  *  Archaeological 
discovery  has  returned  an  unqualified  nega- 
tive to  the  wholesale  assumption  of  mythical 
idealisation  as  forming  the  real  basis  of  ancient 
narratives  like  those  we  are  now  considering. 

But  we  are  not  left  to  rest  our  answer  mere- 
ly upon  the  ^^;/^;'^/ tendency  of  archaeological 
science,  strong  and  definite  though  it  be.     The 

*  Canon  G.  F.  Browne,  late  Disney  Professor  of  Archreolojjy  at 
Cambridge,  in  a  lecture  on  English  Church  History,  at  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral,  since  published. 


192         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

recent  discoveries  in  Biblical  archseology  have 
largely  aided  in  forming  this  general  tendency, 
and  they  affect  in  the  most  direct  and  obvious 
manner  the  historical  character  of  the  patri- 
archal narrative,  A  history  like  that  of  Gen. 
xiv.  presented  us  with  a  picture  of  the  political 
condition  of  the  Asiatic  kingdoms  in  the  days 
of  Abraham,  which  was  until  recently  regarded 
as  entirely  unsupported  by  any  other  source. 
It  was  easy  under  these  circumstances  to  as- 
sume that  we  had  there  only  a  free  poetic 
creation  of  unconscious  art,  or  the  conscious 
invention  of  a  later  age.  Such  in  point  of  fact 
was  the  verdict  expressly  passed  upon  it  by 
critics  like  Noldeke  or  Reuss,  the  real  fathers 
of  the  Wellhausen  school,  and  implied  in  the 
positions  of  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen,  already 
noted.  Recent  discovery,  however,  has  con- 
firmed the  whole  historical  setting  of  the 
narrative  in  such  unqualified  manner  that  it 
is  now  universally  recognised  to  be  a  lifelike 
portraiture  of  the  then  political  condition  of 
the  nations  of  Western  Asia.  The  same  stern 
logic  of  discovered  fact  has  summoned  back 
the  person  of  Melchizedek  the  Priest-King 
of  Salem,  from  the  region  of  mythical  fancy 
to  which  criticism  had  relegated  him,  into  the 


MODERN  iriSTORTCAL    WITNESS.  1 93 

clear  \v^\X.  of  historical  reality.  We  now 
know  that  at  the  date  of  the  Tell-el-Amarna 
tablets,  Jerusalem  was  already  an  important 
city  governed  by  a  Priest- King,  who,  al- 
though subject  to  the  Egyptian  power,  is 
expressly  stated  to  hold  a  unique  position 
of  singular  interest.  He  derived  his  appoint- 
ment neither  from  the  will  of  the  Pharaoh,  nor 
by  hereditary  descent  from  his  father  or  his 
mother,  but  by  the  will  of  the  great  King,  i.e., 
the  God  to  whom  the  inhabitants  of  the  city 
offered  supreme  worship.*  There  can  hardly 
be  a  doubt  that  in  this  peculiar  political  consti- 
tution of  Jerusalem,  of  which  no  trace  remains 
in  the  subsequent  literature,  we  have  the  orig- 
inal of  that  magnificent  figure,  "  the  setting 
sun,"  f  as  he  has  been  well  called,  of  the  prim- 
itive revelation,  to  whom  Abraham  did  such 
signal  homage.  Equally  conclusive  is  the  tes- 
timony of  Egyptian  archaeology  to  the  fidelity 
of  the  picture  drawn  in  the  later  chapters  of 
Genesis.  Semitic  influence,  as  we  now  know, 
was  dominant  in  Lower  Egypt  in  the  time 
of  the  Patriarchs.     The  general  fidelity  of  the 

*  See   this  given   in  much  greater   detail    in  Sayce's  The  Higher 
Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  I74f. 

f  Uelitzch  :    New  Commentary  on  Genesis  I.,  p.  412. 
13 


194         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

Biblical  narrative  in  its  incidental  references  to 
Egypt  has  long  been  recognised.  Yet  it  is 
interesting  to  note  how  each  fresh  discovery 
throws  light  upon  points  previously  not  fully 
understood.  Thus,  for  example,  the  saluta- 
tion with  which  the  investiture  of  Joseph  was 
greeted  by  the  Egyptian  people  has  occa- 
sioned much  trouble  to  commentators.  The 
word  "  Abrek"  had  no  known  Egyptian  deri- 
vation, while  "  it  was  puzzlingly  Semitic  in  its 
look."  The  Semitic  character  of  the  court  of 
Lower  Egypt,  as  now  discovered,  removes  the 
difficulty,  and  we  have  been  enabled  to  identi- 
fy the  word  with  a  Babylonian  title  signifying 
"Seer."*  The  whole  passage  is  thus  made 
luminously  clear.  We  can  picture  to  ourselves 
that  scene  of  long  ago  when  the  courtiers  of  the 
Pharaoh  saluted  the  great  "  Seer  "  who  had 
received  this  magnificent  reward  for  his  ser- 
vices in  the  interpretation  of  the  royal  dreams. 
What  has  been  already  done  is,  as  Professor 
Sayce  rightly  says,  "only  an  earnest  of  what 
will  be  achieved  hereafter  when  the  buried 
cities  and  tombs  of  the  East  have  all  been 
made  to  deliver  up  their  dead."  f     Meanwhile 

*  See  Sayce's  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  214. 
f  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,  p.  233. 


F I  DEI.  IT  Y   OF   THE   HISTORY.  1 95 

we  may  unhesitatingly  affirm  that  the  fidcHty 
of  the  Book  of  Genesis  to  the  contempora- 
neous local  colouring-  and  to  the  actual  history 
of  the  times  and  countries  described  has  been 
already  made  good,  and  this  is  equally  the 
case  whether  we  consider  the  Canaanitish  or 
the  Egyptian  parts  of  the  narrative. 

It  is  quite  obvious  from  the  recent  article  of 
Professor  Driver  in  reply  to  Professor  Sayce's 
new  book,  published  in  the  Co7ite7nporary 
Reviezv,  that  this  point  is  fully  conceded.* 
Canon  Driver,  so  far  from  disputing  the  general 
position  taken  up  by  Professor  Sayce  as  to  the 
fidelity  in  this  respect  of  the  narratives  in 
Genesis,  is  at  great  pains  to  show  that  con- 
servative critics  like  Ewald  and  Ebers  have 
previously  asserted  the  same.  He  is  very 
anxious  to  clearly  distinguish  himself  and 
critics  in  general  from  those  whom  he  calls 
"  certain  extreme  critics  who  accompany  their 
literary  criticisms  of  the  Old  Testament  by  a 
far-reachinof  and  excessive  historical  criticism." 
Just  below  (the  words  are  Canon  Driver's)  he 
complains  that  Professor  Sayce's  habit  of 
never  particularising  names,  and  using  always 

*  See  Article  on  "  Archa;olog)'  and  the  Old  Testament  "  in  Contem- 
porary Review  for  March,  1S94,  p.  416. 


196         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

general  terms,  creates  the  impression  in  the 
reader's  mind  that  critics  generally  are  in- 
cluded in  the  same  condemnation.  In  view 
of  the  wide-spread  distress  which  has  been 
caused  to  thousands  of  devout  souls  by  the 
well  known  views  of  Wellhausen  in  this  re- 
gard, it  might  perhaps  have  been  well  if  Pro- 
fessor Driver,  in  thus  separating  himself  from 
these  extreme  critics,  had  himself  particularised 
names,  and  had  expressed  a  well-deserved  con- 
demnation of  the  Wellhausen  theory  as  to 
the  unhistorical  character  of  even  the  settinof 
of  the  Patriarchal  history.  We  may  take  it, 
therefore,  that  the  position  of  Wellhausen  and 
Kuenen  as  to  that  history  can  no  longer 
be  maintained,  and  may  be  assigned  to  the 
limbo  of  so  many  other  forgotten  theories. 
The  confession  of  Hommel,  one  of  Wellhaus- 
en's  own  followers,  is  practically  conclusive  as 
a  full  surrender  of  the  "  free  creation  "  hy- 
pothesis. He  says  distinctly,  "  The  Exodus 
of  Abraham  from  Babylonia,  the  battle  of 
the  Canaanites  with  the  Babylono-Elamite 
league  in  the  valley  of  Siddim,  and  the  jour- 
ney of  Abraham  to  Egypt  are  historic  facts."  * 

*  Cited  in  Scrader's  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  of  the  Old  Testament, 
Introductory  Preface  to  English  ed.,  p.  xxi. 


SUBORDINATE    QUESTIONS.  \')1 

But  Professor   Driver,   whilst    conceding    the 
historical  colouring    of  the    Pentateuch    com- 
plains that  it  is  deficient  in  local  details.      1  he 
distinction  is  perhaps  somewhat  subtle,  but  it 
is  obviously  made  in  the  interests  of  his  own 
critical  position,  viz.,  that  the  documents  J  and 
E  were  reduced  to  writing  at  a  late  period  in 
the  days  of  the  monarchy,  and  hence  although 
they    rest    upon   a   sound   historical   basis  the 
writers  had  no  information  beyond  that  con- 
tained in  their  source.     They  were  thus  unable 
to  add  the  little  details  which  flow  so  naturally 
from  the  pen  of  a  contemporary.     In  support 
of  this  view  the  only  instance  adduced  is  the 
fact  that  the  individual  personal  names  of  the 
Pharaohs  who  appear  in  Genesis  and  Exodus 
are  not  given.     From  this  Professor  Driver  in- 
fers that"  the  author  of  the  narrative  was  igno- 
rant who  these  Pharaohs    really  were,  which 
he  could  not  have  been  had  he  been  a  contem- 
porary.*      The  whole  argument    turns    upon 
the  assumption  that  if  the  author  of  the  Book 
of  Genesis  had  known  who  the  Pharaoh  was 
he  would  unquestionably  have  mentioned  his 
name,  as  is  done  for  instance  by  Jeremiah  in 
speaking  of  Pharaoh  Necho.     I  venture  with 

*  Contemporary  Review  for  March,  1S94,  p.  418- 


198         THE  DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

some  confidence  to  think  that  we  have  here  a 
distinctly  unsound  assumption.  Not  merely, 
as  Professor  Sayce  points  out,  is  the  usage 
of  the  Egyptian  records  themselves,  in  speak- 
ing of  contemporaneous  foreign  kings,  in  exact 
agreement  with  that  of  Genesis,*  but  the  Bi- 
ble itself  disproves  the  whole  argument.  Was 
Rabshakeh,  for  example,  ignorant  of  the  per- 
sonal name  of  the  master  whom  he  served 
that  in  addressing  the  people  on  the  wall  of  Je- 
rusalem he  never  once  breathes  his  name,  but 
speaks  only  of  ''the  great  king,  the  king  of 
Assyria,"  \  Or  was  Isaiah,  the  confidant  of 
kings,  ignorant  of  the  name  of  the  Pharaoh  of 
his  days,  that  he  again  and  again  lifts  his  warn- 
ing voice  against "  thecoiLnsellors  ofPharaoh,"X 
the  trust  "  in  the  strength  of  Pharaoh,''  § 
and  so  on,  without  specifying  the  name  of  the 
then  reigning  monarch.  It  surely  needs  no 
argument  to  show  that  the  real  heroes  of  the 

*  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments.  "The  individual 
name  of  a  king  is  of  little  use  to  a  stranger,  however  important  it 
may  be  to  those  who  draw  up  legal  documents  at  home."     P.  229. 

f  2  Kings  xviii.  ig,  23,  28.  Cf.  also  the  reference  to  "  Pharaoh,  king 
of  Egypt,"  in  ver.  21.  The  parallel  passage  in  Isaiah  agrees  with  that 
in  2  Kings.  The  synopsis  in  the  Chronicles  clearly  does  not  preserve 
the  original  form. 

X  Isaiah  xix.  11  f. 

§  Isaiah  xxx.  2  S. 


LAIV  OF   THE    O.VE  SANCTUARY.  lg() 

Biblical  narrative  are  not  the  rulers  of  Eg-ypt 
but  the  Patriarchs  of  Israel,  and  that  the  per- 
sonality of  the  Pharaoh  is  not  further  described 
simply  because  it  had  no  bearin_2f  upon  the 
object  in  hand.  We  might  as  well  object  to 
the  Gospel  of  St.  John  because  he  nowhere 
specifies  the  name  of  the  then  reigning  Csesar 
to  whom  he  refers.* 

Few  words  are  necessary  to  indicate  the  bear- 
ing of  all  this  upon  the  question  of  the  non-exist- 
ence of  the  one  sanctuary  in  the  days  of  the 
composition  of  J  and  E.  The  theory  by  which 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  are  made  to  worship 
at  various  places  in  order  to  throw  additional 
sanctity  round  these  different  shrines  in  the 
days  of  the  later  monarchy  is  clearly  a  part  of 
the  general  mythical  hypothesis.  It  may  be  re- 
garded, therefore,  as  being  now  as  thoroughly 
discredited  as  it  has  all  along  been  repulsive  to 
any  devout  mind.  The  critical  hypothesis  as  to 
the  law  of  the  one  sanctuary  gains  no  support 
from  the  Book  of  Genesis.  If  it  is  to  be  main- 
tained at  all  it  must  be  on  the  ""round  of  con- 
siderations  which  claim  an  entirely  different  ori- 
gin, and  so  lie  outside  the  sphere  of  these  Lect- 
ures.    One  thing  at  least,  gentlemen,  I  trust 

*  St.  John  xix.  12. 


200         THE   DELUGE  AND   THE  PATRIARCHS. 

I  have  succeeded  in  placing  beyond  all  doubt, 
viz.,  that  in  studying  the  rich  lessons  of  spirit- 
ual development  which  are  found  so  abundant- 
ly in  the  history  of  the  patriarchs,  we  are  not 
giving  heed  to  cunningly  devised  fables,  but 
are  in  very  truth  standing  at  the  fountain- 
head  of  that  mighty  stream  whose  waters  ever 
issue  forth  from  the  Sanctuary  of  God — that 
we  are  sitting  at  the  feet  of  those  who  in  act- 
ual  deed  were  the  leaders  amongst  the  heroes 
of  faith,  with  whom  by  God's  great  mercy  we 
too  hope  in  his  own  good  time  to  be  made  par- 
takers of  his  glorious  promises. 


APPENDICES. 


APPENDICES. 


APPENDIX   A. 

Lecture  L,  p.  1 1. — "  Professor  Ramsay  has 
lately  show7i  their  special  daiigers^'  etc.  In  his 
recent  work,  "The  Church  in  the  Roman  Em- 
pire." (Preface,  p.  viii.)  He  is  speaking  of 
German  conclusions  in  New  Testament  criti- 
cism, but,  as  shown  in  Lecture  II.,  the  essential 
similarity  of  their  treatment  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writings  justifies  the  application  of  his 
words  to  that  subject  also. 

"  If  I  reach  conclusions  very  different  from  those  of 
the  school  of  criticism  whose  originators  and  chief  ex- 
ponents are  German,  it  is  not  that  I  differ  from  their 
method.  I  fully  accept  their  principle,  that  the  sense 
of  these  documents  can  be  ascertained  only  by  resolute 
criticism  ;  but  I  think  that  they  have  often  carried  out 
their  principle  badly,  and  that  their  criticism  often 
offends  against  critical  methods.  True  criticism  must 
be  sympathetic,  but  in  investigations  into  religion, 
Greek,  Roman,  and  Christian  alike,  there  appears  to  me, 
if  I  may  venture  to  say  so,  to  be  in  many  German  schol- 
ars (the  greatest  excepted),  a   lack  of  that   instinctive 

ao3 


204  APPENDICES. 

sympathy  with  the  life  and  nature  of  a  people  which  is 
essential  to  the  right  use  of  critical  processes.  None 
admires  and  reverences  German  scholarship  more  than 
I  do,  but  it  has  not  taught  me  to  be  blind  to  faults  or 
to  be  afraid  to  speak  out." 

An  instructive  illustration  of  the  kind  of  evi- 
dence which  led  Professor  Ramsay  to  express 
this  judgment  upon  a  school  in  which  he  had 
himself  been  trained  will  be  found  in  the  dis- 
cussion on  "The  Royal  Road,"  p.  32  ff. 


APPENDIX  B. 

*'  Limitations  which  affected  alike  the  scope 
of  His  teaching^'  etc.  (p,  25). 

It  seems  unfortunate  that  this  matter  should 
have  been  so  closely  connected  with  a  largely 
irrelevant  controversy  as  to  the  limits  of  our 
Lord's  human  knovvledg-e — a  region  of  thouo-ht 
which  is  so  sacred  and  probably  so  far  beyond 
our  powers  that  it  behoves  our  words  in  regard 
to  it  to  be  few,  and  our  very  thoughts  kept  un- 
der strong  restraint — -the  last  subject  surely  to 
be  brought  into  the  arena  of  mere  intellectual 
or  critical  discussion.  The  questions  connect- 
ed with  our  Lord's  use  of  the  Old  Testament 


appejvd/ces.  205 

seem  essentially  akin,  not  so  much  to  this 
deep  and  mysterious  subject,  as  to  the  essen- 
tial laws  of  Divine  Revelation,  and  the  Divine 
accommodation  to  circumstance  and  human 
capacity  which  lies  inherent  in  the  very  con- 
ception of  Revelation  itself.  We  are  familiar 
with  the  thought  of  an  ethical  accommodation 
of  Almighty  God  to  the  varying  stages  of  prog- 
ress of  His  sinful  creatures.  Our  Lord  Him- 
self lays  stress  upon  a  typical  instance  of  this 
in  S.  Matt.  xix.  S  ;  cf.  also  Gen.  xxii.  2,  as  an 
Old  Testament  example.  In  S.  Matt.  v.  32 
and  xix.  9,  compared  with  S.  Mark  x.  11,  and 
parallels,  we  have  almost  certainly  an  accom- 
modation of  the  Christian  law  of  marriage,  ren- 
dered necessary  by  the  Mosaic  enactment  as 
to  the  punishment  of  adultery,  which  was  still 
in  force  whilst  the  older  covenant  was  not  yet 
done  away.  So  in  our  Lord's  adaptation  of  His 
teachine  with  reo^ard  to  His  own  Person  and 
work  to  the  slowly  growing  apprehension  of 
the  Disciples,  we  have  a  clear  instance  of  sim- 
ilar limitation  in  teaching.  Thus,  when  on  the 
point  of  leaving  them,  He  could  say,  I  Jiavc  yet 
vtany  thifigs  to  say  tuito  yo?i,  hut yc  camiot  bear 
tJicm  now,  and  so  commit  them  unto  the  en- 
lightenment of  that  Blessed  Spirit,  who  should 


206  APPENDICES. 

guide  the  Apostles  into  all  the  truth,  and  sup- 
ply that  which  our  Lord  had  designedly  left 
lacking  in  His  own  spoken  words.  If  this  be 
the  case  with  regard  to  matters  so  supremely 
important,  is  it  a  strange  assumption  that,  in 
any  case,  our  Lord  would  naturally  have 
spoken  to  the  Jews  of  the  authorship  of  their 
Sacred  Scriptures  in  the  way  in  which  they 
could  alone  have  understood  Him,  and  would 
not  have  partially  defeated  His  own  purpose 
by  entering  upon  comparatively  irrelevant  crit- 
ical matters  where  His  hearers  could  not  have 
followed  Him  ?  Whatever  view  we  may  hold 
in  regard  to  this  difificult  question,  at  any  rate 
it  should  be  based  upon  the  general  analogy' 
of  Revelation,  and  not  carried  up  into  a  mys- 
terious region  with  which  it  has  properly  little 
or  nothinof  to  do. 

APPENDIX   C. 

"  The  Elohistic  and  Jahvistic  sources  respec- 
tively'' (p.  47). 

It  has  been  thoug-ht  better  in  a  treatise 
dealing  with  critical  matters  to  employ  the 
nomenclature  usual  in  the  critical  writings,  so 
speaking  of  a  "Jahvistic"  rather  than  of  a  "Je- 


APPENDICES.  207 

hovistic  "  source.  It  seems  well  also  to  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  spelling-  of  the 
Divine  Name  which  has  become  familiar  and 
hallowed  to  readers  of  the  English  Bible  has 
no  ancient  authority.  All  ancient  authority  is 
unanimous  that  the  first  syllable  of  the  Sacred 
Name  is  to  be  vocalized  Jah,  a  form  which  is 
preserved  in  the  English  Bible  in  Ps.  Ixviii.  4. 
An  unfortunate  confusion,  originating  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  led  to  the  adoption  of  the 
form  "  Jehovah,"  by  which  the  identity  of  the 
abbreviated  form  of  the  Sacred  Name  em- 
ployed in  Ps.  Ixviii.  4  with  that  generally  used 
is  greatly  obscured.  After  some  hesitation, 
therefore,  the  form  Jahveh  has  been  employed 
throughout  the  book.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  add  that  the  chancre  of  vocalization  does  not 
imply  any  alteration  of  meaning.  The  two 
forms  connote  precisely  the  same  thing. 

APPENDIX   D. 

"  Eichorn  was  a  thorough-going  Rationalist 
of  the  eighteenth  centtiry  type''  (p.  50). 

"  SchleierTuacher,  with  zohom  religion  was 
rather  a  matter  of  the  heart  than  of  the  head," 
etc.  (p.  55). 


2o8  APPENDICES. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  note  the  contem- 
porary estimate  of  these  men  as  given  by  an 
EngHsh  scholar  of  high  reputation,  who  was 
at  the  time  a  post-graduate  student  attending 
their  lectures.  The  extracts  are  from  Liddon's 
"Life  of  E.  B.  Pusey,  D.D.,"  vol.  i. 

"  In  1825  Eichorn  was  lecturing  on  .  .  .  the 
Books  of  Moses.  Pusey  attended  the  .  .  .  course. 
He  was  struck  by  Eichorn's  total  insensibility  to  the 
real  religious  import  of  the  narrative,  although  the  crit- 
ical and  historical  information  was  often  astonishing. 
.  Yet  Eichorn  certainly  meant  to  be  on  his  guard 
against  the  shallow  and  frivolous  scornfulness  of  vulgar 
unbelief.  Only  in  him  religious  interests  were  entirely 
subordinate  to  the  supposed  interests  of  literature  ;  the 
supernatural  element  was  treated  not  as  an  objective 
reality,  but  as  representing  an  ancient  and  profoundly 
interesting  state  of  mind.  .  .  .  Eichorn  assumed 
that  every  phenomenon  in  revealed  religion  had  a  hu- 
man origin,"  etc.  (pp.  73-75)- 

"  Frederick  Ernest  Daniel  Schleiermacher  was,  in 
1825,  the  most  commanding  figure  in  the  religious 
world  of  Berlin,  and  indeed  in  Protestant  Germany. 
.  .  .  Pusey  often  spoke  in  later  life  of  his  inter- 
course with  Schleiermacher,  and  would  describe  him  as 
a  man  of  great  earnestness  and  genius,  who  was  feeling 
his  way  back  from  rationalism  toward  positive  truth. 
.  .  .  Even  Schleiermacher's  mistakes  were  some- 
times allied  to  the  upward  tendency  of  his  thought. 
If  he  erred  in  making  feeling  alone  the  seat  of  religion 


APPEXDICKS.  209 

in  the  soul,  he  was  opposing  the  narrow  academical 
tendency  to  treat  revealed  religion  as  merely  a  subject 
for  philosophical  discussion,  or  the  Kantian  tendency 
to  resolve  it  into  mere  morality.  The  bias  of  his  mind 
in  his  later  years  was  toward  an  increased  reverence 
for  the  Bible.  .  .  .  Schleiermacher's  theory,  which 
makes  religion  consist  altogether  in  a  feeling  of  de- 
pendence on  God— exaggerated  though  it  was— pow- 
erfully appealed  to  elements  in  Pusey's  character  ;  and 
it  is  even  probable  that  Pusey  owed  the  beginnings  of 
some  prominent  features  of  his  devotional  life  to  his 
intercourse  with  Schleiermacher  "  (pp.  80-84). 


APPENDIX   E. 

"  The  most  recent  critical  school  represented 
i?i  Germany  by  Strack  and  KitteT'  (p.  66). 

Professor  Brig-gs  thus  describes  the  position 
of  these  scholars : 

"  They  are  agreed  as  to  the  order  of  development  of 
E,  J,  and  D,  but  think  that  the  legislation  of  P  is  in 
the  main  pre-exilic,  and  that  a  considerable  part  of  it  is 
very  ancient.  They  magnify  the  amount  of  ancient  and 
original  documents  used  by  P  "  ("  Higher  Criticism  of 
the  Hexateuch,"  p.  130). 

But  if  this  be   true,    what  becomes  of  the 
Wellhausen  position  as  to  the  character  of  P, 
and  of  the  grounds  on  which  it  was  rested.      It 
14 


2  I O  A  PPENDICES. 

is  clear  that  the  difference  is  only  one  of  de- 
gree between  the  position  of  this  newest  Ger- 
man school  and  the  old  view  of  the  superior 
antiquity  of  P.  So  the  critical  wheel  goes 
round. 


APPENDIX  F. 

^^  Both  the  construction  and  the  subject-matter 
make  it  very  difficult  for  us  not  to  regard  the 
last  verse  (Gen.  xix.  22)  as  the  final  sum^ming 
up  of  a  narrative  like  the  existing  accotmt  in 
Genesis  "  (p.  75). 

How  strong  the  presumption  is  may  be 
gathered  from  the  verdict  of  Bleek  on  this  mat- 
ter, writing  at  a  time  when  the  current  critical 
theory  placed  no  obstacle  in  the  way  of  accept- 
ing the  natural  literary  deduction  from  the 
sacred  text.  The  quotations  are  from  Bleek's 
"Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament"  (ed. 
Venables),  vol.  i. 

"  The  author,  in  the  further  course  of  the  book  "  {i.e., 
in  the  later  Patriarchal  narratives)  "  has  not  fully  adopted 
the  Elohistic  work  in  all  his  narratives,  but  has  some- 
what revised  and  enlarged  it,  though  in  some  places  he 
has  also  abridged  and  omitted  ;  of  this  there  are  distinct 
traces.     Thus  it  results  from  the  decidedly  Elohistic 


APPENDICES.  2  I  I 

verse  (ch.  xi.x.  29)  that  just  before,  in  the  Elohistic  writ- 
ing, there  must  have  been  an  account  of  Lot,  and  par- 
ticularly of  his  sojourn  in  Sodom  ;  but  the  later  reviser 
cannot  have  included  this  account  in  his  work  as  he 
there  found  it,  as  what  goes  before  referring  to  Lot, 
particularly  as  to  his  separation  from  Abraham,  is  Jeho- 
vistic  "  (p.  294). 

"  The  manner  in  which  the  later  author  has  contin- 
ually, and  in  increasing  measure  as  his  work  advanced, 
dealt  with  the  ancient  Elohistic  document,  prevents  us 
in  many  instances  from  effecting  any  detailed  determi- 
nation between  the  matter  which  belongs  to  it  and  that 
which  does  not  "  (p.  295). 

Of  course  Bleek  is  now  considered  quite  out 
of  date.  The  fashionable  critical  hypothesis  as 
to  the  relative  dates  of  P  and  J  is  the  exact 
reverse  of  that  which  he  held.  But  surely 
that  method  of  literary  analysis  must  be  very 
unsound  which  from  a  mere  reversal  of  the 
relative  dates  of  P  and  J  deduces  completely 
irreconcilable  results  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
original  document  of  P.  It  is  quite  evident 
what  Bleek  would  have  said  to  the  argument 
from  the  "  silence  of  P,"  yet  on  such  a  flimsy 
foundation  as  this  we  are  asked  to  accept  the 
whole  Wellhausen  theory  as  to  the  antagonis- 
tic stand-points  of  P  and  J  with  all  the  repul- 
sive consequences  which  How  therefrom. 


APPENDIX   G. 

Lecture  II.,  p.  8i. — "  The  same  method  has 
been  applied  to  the  Homeric  writings,''  etc.  A 
full  discussion  of  this  question  will  be  found 
in  "  Homer  and  the  Epic,"  by  A.  Lang  (Long- 
mans). The  following  extracts  will  show  the 
remarkable  parallelism  between  the  Wolfian 
theory  and  the  corresponding  elements  of  the 
Old  Testament  criticism: 

"Wolf's  theory  is  that  writing  was  not  used  for  liter- 
ary purposes  when  first  the  Homeric  lays  were  sung, 
nor  for  hundreds  of  years  afterwards.  That  through 
these  hundreds  of  years,  the  lays  floated  in  the  memory 
of  rhapsodes,  who  being  also  poets,  altered  and  added 
to  them  at  will.  Then  they  were  reduced  to  writing 
for  the  first  time  in  the  age  of  Pisistratus  "  (p.  76). 

Compare  with  this  Professor  Sanday's  ac- 
count of  the  literary  history  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Books  cited  in  Lecture  II.,  pp.  48,  49. 

Mr.  Lang's  emphatic  verdict  upon  the  Wolf- 
ian hypothesis  is  as  follows : 

'■'■  The  whole  argument  of  Wolf  no  longer  holds  water. 
.  .  .  Modern  discoveries  have  destroyed  his  premises 
so  far  as  writing  is  concerned  "  (p.  77). 


APPENDIX   H. 

**  6'.  Augustine  states  it  as  a  commonplace 
that  the  object  of  Holy  Scripture  is  to  teach  Dicn 
tilings  of  luJiich  they  ought  not  to  be  ignorant, 
yet  cannot  knozv  of  themselves  "  (p.  93). 

The  quotation  is  from  the  "  De  Civ.  Dei," 
XI.,  3.     The  whole  passage  is  as  follows  : 

"  Hie  prius  per  Prophetas,  deinde  per  se  ipsum, 
postea  per  Apostolos,  quantum  satis  esse  judicavit,  locu- 
tus,  etiam  Scripturam  condidit,  qure  canonica  nomi- 
natur,  eminentissimae  auctoritatis,  cui  fidem  habemus  de 
his  rebus  quas  ignorare  non  expedit  nee  per  nosmet  ipsos 
nosse  idonei  sumus.  Nam  si  ea  sciri  possunt  testibus 
nostris,  quce  remota  non  sunt  e  sensibus  nostris  sive 
interioribus  sive  etiam  exterioribus  ;  unde  et  praesentia 
nuncupantur,  quod  ita  ea  dicimus  esse  prae  sensibus, 
sicut  prre  oculis  qua^  prcesto  sunt  oculis  ;  perfecto  ea 
quae  remota  sunt  a  sensibus  nostris,  quoniam  nostro  tes- 
timonio  scire  non  possumus,  de  his  alios  testes  requiri- 
mus,  eisque  credimus  a  quorum  sensibus  remota  esse 
vel  fuisse  non  credimus." 

The  passage  forms  part  of  an  introduction 
to  the  exposition  of  the  narrative  of  Creation 
in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis,  similar  in 
character  to  that  in  the  "  De  Genesi  ad  lit- 
teram." 

Note    also    the    folio  win  cf    from    the    same 


214  APPENDICES. 

work  (XIX.,  1 8).     Referring  to  the  Neo-Plato- 
nists,  "  quibus  incerta  sunt  omnia,"  he  says: 

"  Omnino  civitas  Dei  talem  dubitationem  tanquam 
dementiam  detestatur,  habens  de  rebus,  quas  mente  atque 
ratione  comprehendit,  etiamsi  parvam  propter  corpus 
corruptibile,  quod  aggravat  animam,  quoniam  sicut  dicit 
Apostolus,  ex  parte  scimus,  tamen  certissimam  scien- 
tiam  ;  creditque  sensibus  in  rei  cujusque  evidentia,  qui- 
bus  per  corpus  animus  utitur ;  quoniam  miserabilius 
fallitur,  qui  nunquam  putat  eis  esse  credendum.  Credit 
etiam  Scripturis  Sanctis  et  veteribus  et  novis,  quas 
Canonicas  appellamus,  unde  fides  ipsa  concepta  est,  ex 
qua  Justus  vivit ;  per  quam  sine  dubitatione  ambulamus, 
quamdiu  perigrinamus  a  Domino  ;  qua  salva  atque  certa 
de  quibusdam  rebus,  quas  neque  sensu,  neque  ratione 
percepimus,  neque  nobis  per  Scripturam  canonicam  cla- 
ruerunt,  nee  per  testes  quibus  non  credere  absurdum 
est,  in  nostram  notitiam  pervenerunt,  sine  justa  repre- 
hensione  dubitamus." 

For  practical  instances  of  the  way  in  which 
S.  Augustine  embodied  these  principles  in  his 
own  teaching,  showing  his  anxiety  to  bring  to 
bear  upon  the  interpretation  of  Holy  Scripture 
each  branch  of  knowledge  in  its  proper  sphere, 
see  the  following  passages  from  "  De  Genesi 
ad  litteram,  I.,  21  (differing  lengths  of  day 
and  night  in  various  parts  of  the  earth)  ;  I.,  39 
(warning  against  rash  interpretations  conflict- 


APPENDICES.  2  I  5 

inor  with  the  laws  of  nature ;  II.,  2  (discussion 
as  to  the  way  in  which  water  can  be  stored  in 
the  air  as  vapour)  ;  II.,  20  (as  to  the  shape  of 
the  firmament  surrounding  the  earth)  ;  II.,  23 
(on  the  rotation  of  the  heavenly  bodies)  ;  II.,  23 
(as  to  the  phases  of  the  moon);  IV.,  51  (a 
striking-  picture  of  the  creation  as  containing 
germinally  within  itself  the  seeds  of  a  progres- 
sive evolution)  ;  VI.,  18  (a  similar  passage)  ; 
VII.,  20  (as  to  the  connection  of  nervous  ac- 
tion throughout  the  body  into  the  brain,  and 
the  effects  which  follow  from  various  lesions 
of  the  brain,  demonstrating  the  distribution  of 
the  seats  of  various  faculties  within  it). 

It  may  be  well  to  note  the  fine  passage 
on  the  inevitable  limitation  of  human  knowl- 
edge in  the  "  De  Genesi  ad  litteram,"  VI.,  34. 
The  following  extracts  will  sufficiently  indi- 
cate the  line  of  thought,  but  the  whole  i^assage 
well  deserves  perusal : 

"(Deus)  propinquior  nobis  est  qui  fecit,  quam  multa 
quae  facta  sunt." 

"  Ignota  enim  sunt  fundamenta  terrne  oculis  nostris, 
at  qui  fundavit  terrain,  propinquat  mentibus  nostris." 


m 


APPENDIX  I. 

T/ie  spiritual  lessons  which  lie  enshrined  in 
the  several  ''days'  may  be  studied  in  the  pages 
of  S.  Aug7istine  (p.  124). 

The  following  quotations  will  give  a  fair 
view  of  S.  Augustine's  teaching  with  regard  to 
the  "  days."  The  references,  unless  otherwise 
stated,  are  to  the  "  De  Genesi  ad  litteram." 

Some    things    in   the   narrative   of  Genesis 

must  clearly  be  taken  figuratively : 

"  Nam  non  esse  accipienda  figuraliter,  nullus  Chris- 
tianus  dicere  audebit,  attendens  Apostolum  dicentem, 
omnia  autem  hcec  in  figura  contingebant  iilis  ;  et  illud  quod 
in  Genesi  scriptum  est,  et  erant  duo  in  came  una  "  (I.,  i). 

After  noting  that  day  and  night  are  of  dif- 
ferent lengths  at  various  parts  of  the  earth's 
surface  (l.,  21),  he  suggests  that  "one  day" 
includes  all  time,  as  follows  : 

"  An  hie  dies  toties  temporis  nomen  est,  et  omnia 
volumina  sseculorum  hoc  vocabulo  includit ;  ideoque 
non  dictus  est  primus,  sed  unus  dies  "  (I.,  ;^2). 

The  appointment  of  the  great  luminaries  y^^r 
signs  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days  and  years, 
upon  the  fourth  "  day,"  suggests  that  the  lan- 
guage is  figurative  and  leads  on  to  the  follow- 
ing important  statement: 

216 


APPENDICES.  217 

"  Vespera  autem  et  mane  non  quasi  per  temporis 
prreteritionem  et  adventum,  sed  per  quendam  ter- 
minum,  quo  intelligitur  quousque  sit  natura:  proprius 
modus,  et  unde  sit  natural  alterius  consequenter  exor- 
dium "  (II.,  28). 

Similar  in  effect  is  his  comment  upon  the 
absence  of  mention  of  "the  evening  and  the 
morning"  in  regard  to  "the  seventh  day." 

"  Si  in  ceteris  diebus  vespera  et  mane  talium  tem- 
porum  vices  significant,  qualia  nunc  per  hsc  quotidiana 
spatia  peraguntur,  non  video  quid  prohibuerit  et  septi- 
mum  diem  vespera,  noctem  ejusdem  mane  concludere, 
ut  similiter  diceretur,  et  facta  est  vespera,  et  factum 
est  mane,  dies  septimus  (IV.,  i:^. 

"The  seventh  day  "  clearly  does  not  denote  a 
mere  temporal  Divine  resting:  "  Ipse  nee  cum 
creavit  defessus,  nee  cum  cessavit  refectus  est" 
(IV.,  25),  but  represents  the  inner  life  of  God, 
Who  hath  no  need  of  any  created  thing. 

"  Insinuatur  nobis  Deus  per  banc  scripturam,  qua 
dicitur  requtevisse  ab  omnibus  operibus  suis  quae  fecit, 
nullo  opere  suo  sic  delectatus  quasi  faciendi  ejus 
eguerit,  vel  minor  futurus  nisi  fecisset,  vel  beatior  cum 
fecisset  "  (IV.,  26). 

The  sanctification  of  the  seventh  day  was 
for  our  sakes,  a  benediction  of  the  inner  super- 
natural life  of  the  soul :  and  so  the  Christian 


2l8  APPENDICES. 

"  perpetuum  Sabbatum  jam  observat,  .  .  .  ut  in 
novitate  vitae  ambulans,  Deum  in  se  operari  cognoscat, 
qui  simul  et  operatur,  et  quiescit,  et  crseaturse  praebens 
congruam  gubernationem,  et  apud  se  habens  aternam 
tranquillitatem  "  (IV.,  24). 

He  concludes  his  argument  on  this  head, 
after  stating  that  these  "  days  "  contain  within 
themselves  a  great  mystery,  by  an  emphatic 
disclaimer  of  their  resembling  ordinary  periods 
of  time. 

"  Istos  septem  dies,  qui  pro  illis  agunt  hebdomadem, 
cujus  cursu  et  recursu  tempora  rapiuntur,  in  qua  dies 
unus  est  a  solis  ortu  usque  in  ortum  circuitus,  sic  il- 
lorum  vicem  quamdam  exhibere  credamus,  ut  non  eos 
illis  similes,  sed  multum  impares  minime  dubitemus" 
(IV,  44). 

To  a  similar  effect,  the  passage  from  the 
"  De  Civitate  Dei,"  quoted  by  Delitzch  in  his 
"  New  Commentary  on  Genesis,"  vol.  i.,  p.  84. 

'*  Qui  dies  cujusmodi  sint  ;  aut  perdifificile  nobis  aut 
etiam  impossibile  est  cogitare,  quanto  magis  dicere  " 
(De  Civ.  Dei,  XL,  6). 

Another  favorite  thought  with  S.  Augustine 
is  that  the  "  day  of  creation  "  was  both  an  end- 
ing and  a  beginning,  as  he  explains  below. 


APPENDICES.  2 1 9 

"  Nunc  autem  quia  jam  et  consummata  quodammodo, 
et  quodammodo  inchoata  sunt  ea  ipsa  quae  consequenti- 
bus  evolvenda  temporibus  primitus  Deus  omnia  simul 
creavit,  cum  faccrct  mundum  ;  consummata  quidem 
quia  nihil  habent  ilia  in  naturis  propriis,  quibus  suorum 
temporum  cursus  agunt,  quod  non  in  istis  causaliter 
factum  sit  ;  inchoata  vero,  quoniam  quaedam  erant 
quasi  semina  futurorum,  per  seculi  tractum  ex  occulto 
in  manifestum  locis  congruis  exserenda  "  (VI.,  i8). 


With  reference  to  the  Divine  Word  in  crea- 
tion : 

"Cum  ergo  audimus,  Et  dixit Dciis,  fiat ;  intelligimus 
quod  in  Verbo  Dei  erat  ut  fieret.  .  .  .  Non  ergo 
Deus  toties  dixit,  Fiat  ilia  vel  ilia  creatura,  quoties  in 
hoc  libro  repetitur,  Et  dixit  Dcus.  Unum  quippe  Ver- 
bum  ille  genuit,  in  quo  dixit  omnia,  prius(iuam  facta 
sunt  singula  ;  sed  elogium  scribentis  descendens  ad 
parvulorum  capacitatem,  dum  insinuat  singulatim  gen- 
era creaturarum,  per  singula  respicit  uniuscujusque 
generis  aeternam  rationem  in  Verbo  Dei  ;  nee  ilia  re- 
petita,  ille  tamen  repetit,  Et  dixit  Deus. 

"  Cum  vero  audimus,  Et  sic  est  factum  j  intelligimus 
factam  creaturam  non  excessisse  praescriptos  in  Verbo 
Dei  terminos  genesis  sui. 

"  Cum  vero  audimus,  Et  vidit  Deus  quia  bonutn  est,  in- 
telligimus in  benignitate  spiritus  ejus,  non  quasi  cog- 
nitum  posteaquam  factum  est  placuisse,  sed  potius  in 
ea  bonitate  placuisse  ut  maneret  factum,  ubi  placebat 
ut  fieret  "  (II.,  13,  14). 


220  APPENDICES. 

Mr.  Coggln's  book,  "  Man's  Great  Charter," 
will  show  how  fully  a  modern  writer  has  im- 
bibed the  spirit  of  S.  Augustine,  whilst  in  per- 
fect sympathy  with  the  most  recent  scientific 
investigations.  I  subjoin  a  few  extracts  per- 
tinent to  the  matter  in  hand. 

"  Day  is  not  a  time-word,  but  stands  for  that  state  or 
those  laws  of  existence  by  means  of  which  any  thing  is 
what  it  is,  or  for  the  very  essence  of  that  to  which  it  is 
related  "  (p.  44). 

Thus  '*  God's  days  make  man's  days  possible.  God's 
working  makes  man's  working  possible  "  (p.  35). 

"  The  correspondence  between  God's  days  and  man's 
days  is  like  that  between  foundation  and  superstruct- 
ure, or  between  substance  and  shadow,  or  between  the 
original  and  its  image  "  (p.  36). 

"  The  seventh  day,  without  beginning  or  end,  marks 
the  changeless  attributes  of  God  ;  the  six  days  whose 
beginnings  are  noted,  but  of  whose  end  no  hint  is  given, 
mark  the  reality  of  the  Divine  activity.  Each  of  the 
six  days  is  brought  to  morning,  all  six  are  continued. 
Man  lives  in  these  six  days  "  (p.  59). 

"  The  six  days  are  insufficient  for  man,  with  these 
alone  his  nature  remains  in  partial  eclipse,  but  when 
God  shines  upon  him,  the  dim  recesses  of  his  being  are 
flooded  with  light  and  his  dullest  task  is  brightened 
with  a  radiance  not  its  own  "  (p.  192). 

"  It  is  not  sufficient  for  a  man  to  work  like  a  horse, 
he  must  work  like  God  "  (p.  201). 


APPENDIX  J. 

"  The  q7iestions  raised  by  the  gencaloc^ies  in 
Chapter  V.,  and  the  miuibers  therein  contained, 
which  appear  as  insoluble  tcp07i  the  critical  as 
7ip07i  the  traditional  7nethods''  (p.  157). 

The  following-  citations  from  Kuenen's 
"  Les  Origines  du  Texte  Mazorctique,"  Paris, 
1875,  a  critical  examination  of  various  hypoth- 
eses as  to  the  origin  of  the  differences  in  the 
Hebrew,  LXX.,  and  Samaritan  texts,  will  sub- 
stantiate the  position  above  taken.  The  ex- 
tracts represent  Kuenen's  final  summing  up  of 
the  whole  matter : 

"  La  difficulte  soulev6e  par  les  trois  textes  de  Genese 
V.  et  xi.,  10-26,  n'est  pas  encore  resolue.  ...  La 
demonstration  que  je  demande  n'a  pas  encore  ete  four- 
nie,  et  vous  m'en  croirez  volontiers  sur  parole  si  je  me 
declare  hors  d'etat  de  resoudre  le  probleme  d'une 
maniere  tout  h.  fait  satisfaisante  "  (p.  46). 

And  again  : 

"  Dans  le  jugement  que  je  porte  sur  toutes  ces  solu- 
tions de  la  difficulte,  je  me  trouve  d'accord  avec  Geiger, 
dont  le  propos  sur  ce  sujet  contient  bien  dcs  choscs 
excellentes.  II  reussit  ;\  expli(iuer  d'une  maniere  sim- 
ple et  naturelle  un  certain  nombre  de  divergences  pe- 
tites  ou  grandes  des  trois  recensions,  en  se  servant  des 
indices  fournis  par  les  traditions  juive  et  samaritaine 
elles-memes.     Mais  lui  aussi  ne  va  pas  plus  loin.     Nous 


222  APPENDICES. 

pouvons  toujours  demander  si,  apres  avoir  constate  ces 
divergences,  et  apporte  au  texte  les  corrections  qui  en 
decoulent,  nous  avons  completement  attaint  le  but  que 
nous  poursuivons  ;  en  d'autres  termes,  ce  qui  est  rela- 
tivement  plus  original,  est-il  aussi  I'original  ?  Ici 
Geiger  nous  laisse  dans  I'incertitude  "  (pp.  49,  50). 

To  a  similar  effect  Dillmann  in  the  last  edi- 
tion of  his  "  Commentary  on  Genesis"  : 

"  Das  zu  grund  liegende  Princip  der  Berechnung  ist 
bis  jezt  nicht  gefunden.  Das  Problem  ist  um  so 
schwieriger,  weil  in  diesen  Zahlen  die  altesten  krit- 
ischen  Zeugen,  der  hbr.,  Samar.,  u.  LXX.  Text  stark 
von  einander  abweichen  "  (p.  no). 

Upon  Budde's  plan  for  identifying  the  latter 
half  of  the  genealogy  in  Genesis  v.  with  that 
in  Genesis  iv.  16-19,  Dillmann's  verdict  is  ad- 
verse. 

"  Aber  auch  dieser  Construction  ist  mehr  scharf- 
sinnig  als  beifallswurdig  "  (p.  109). 


APPENDIX   K. 

"  The  analysis  wotild  present  much  less  diffi- 
culty under  the  assumption  which  until  quite 
recently  was  universally  tnade''  (p.  174)- 

It  is  interesting  that  an  acute  critic  like  Bleek 


A  PPENDICES.  223 

claims,  from  a  consideration  of  the  simple  text, 
to  arrive  at  a  conclusion  absolutely  opposed  to 
the  present  critical  theory.  This  is  a  strong 
confirmation  of  the  position  taken  in  the  pres- 
ent work.  Bleek  is  speaking  of  the  history  of 
the  Flood,  on  which  he  remarks  as  follows  : 

"  The  consideration  of  the  context  here,  quite  apart 
from  the  changes  in  the  naming  of  God,  shows  that  the  J  eho- 
vistic  passages  of  the  narrative  did  not  originally  belong 
to  it.  It  cannot  fail  to  be  observed  that  the  connection 
is  often  interrupted  by  the  Jehovistic  passages,  and  that 
by  cutting  them  out  a  more  natural  and  clearer  conti- 
nuity of  the  narrative  is  almost  always  obtained  "  (p. 
273)- 

[The  italics  have  been  added  to  emphasize 
Bleek's  claim  to  deduce  his  results  directly  from 
literary  considerations,  irrespective  of  any  de- 
duction from  the  use  of  the  Divine  Names.] 

In  plain  truth  the  current  hypothesis  does 
violence  to  the  literary  phenomena  of  this  sec- 
tion. It  is  maintained  not  in  consequence  of 
the  literary  facts,  but  in  spite  of  them,  and 
really  rests  upon  different  foundations  alto- 
gether, viz.,  the  assumptions  as  to  the  widely 
differing  dates  of  the  three  Pentateuchal  codes 
and  in  regard  to  the  law  of  the  one  sanctuary. 


APPENDIX  L. 

The  following-  analysis  of  the  first  nine 
chapters  of  Genesis  may  illustrate  the  arg"u- 
ment  of  Lectures  III.,  IV.,  and  the  first  half  of 
Lecture  V.  : 


/.  THE  GENERAL  INTRODUCTION,  OR  THE  DIVINE 
CHARTER  SHOWING  THE  ESSENTIAL  RELA- 
TLONS  OF  MAN,  THE  WORLD,  AND  GOD.      I.   I-U.  4 

(J.)  The  First  Creative  Act — Creation 

of  Physical  Nature.  i.  i 

Detailed  reference  to  the  Divine  Vo- 
lition carried  out  by  the  Eiernal 
Word  of  ixve  groups  or  orders  of 
the  Physical  world. 

(i)    Light,  or  the   foundations  of 

Physical  Order  and  Law.  i.  2-6.        Day  i. 

(2)  Firmament,   connecting    the 
earth  with  the  greater  order  of 

the  universe  outside.     1.6-9.  Day  ii. 

(3)  Separation     of     earth     and" 
waters,  adapting  the  earth  for 
vegetation  and  life.     i.  9-1 1. 

(4)  Production  of  vegetable  life,  r    ^^J  "^• 
for  the  support  of  sentient  liv- 


things     and    for    beauty. 


I.  11-14. 


APPEXDICES. 


225 


(5)  LumiiKiric;s,  adai)tino  the 
earth  to  sentient  and  rational 
hfe.  em])odyinL^^  the  principle  of 
rational  order.      1.  14-20.  Day  iv. 

(B)  The  Second  Creative  Act— Crea- 
tion of  sentient  Life.  i-   21 

Detailed  reference  to  the  Divine  Vo- 
htion  carried  out  by  the  Eternal 
\A/oRD,  of  two  groups  or  orders  of 
sentient  life. 

(6)  Life  in  water  and  air.   1.20-2.:.       Day  v. 

(7)  Animal  life  on  the  earth,      i. 
24-26. 

(C)  The  Third  Creative  Act— Crea- 
tion of  man  as  a  rational  and  spir- 
itual being,  capable  of  progress  and 
perfection.     1.    27. 

Detailed  Reference  to  the  Divine  Vo- 
lition carried  out  by  the  Eternal 
Word,  of  the  following  relations: 


(8)  Relation  of  Man  to  Nature 
as  representative  of  God's  char- 
acter and  authority  therein,  i. 
26,  28. 

(9)  Relation  of  Vegetable  to  sen- 
tient life  as  its  source  of  sus- 
tenance and  support.       i.  29-31. 

Solemn  ratification  of  the  whole 
order  as  corresponding  to  the 
Divine  purpose,     i.  31, 11.  1. 


I   Day  vi. 


2  26  A  P  PEN  DICE  S. 

(D)  The  Divine  Rest,  or  the  unseen 
order  :  the  Eternal  world  of  GoD, 
to  which  the  visible  universe  stands 
in  closest  relationship,  and  by 
which  the  higher  life  and  worship 
of  man  is  sustained,     i.  2-4.1  Day  vii. 

//.  T//E  GENERATIONS  OF  THE  HEAVENS  AND 
THE  EARTH,  OR  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE 
HIGHER  LIFE  OF  MAN  IN  ITS  ESSENTIAL  PRIN. 
CIPLES,  AS  SEEN  IN  THE  DIVINE  PURPOSE 
ORIGINALLY,  AND  AS  IT  HAS  ACTUALLY  COME 
TO  BE.  11.  4-1 V.  26 

{A)  The  Development  of  the  higher 
life  of  man  in  its  essential  principles 
as  seen  in  the  Divine  purpose  orig- 
inally. II.  4-25 

(i)   Recapitulation  showing — 

[a)  Initial     chaotic      condition      of 

things.  II.  5,  6 

[b)  Man's  double  relationship;  on 
his  physical  side  to  the  earth,  on 
his   spiritual  side   to    the    Divine 

world.  Ti.  7 

(2)   The  first  Paradise  :  its  nature, 
Hmitations,  and  blessings. 

{a)  The  nature  of  the  Paradise.  11.  8-15 

{b)  The  commission  to  man  in  re- 
gard to  it.  II.  15 

(<r)  Its  blessings  and  the  law  of  pro- 
bation it  enshrined.  11.  16-18 


APPENDICES.  227 

(3)  The  relation  of  man  to 
woman  a  Divine  provision  for 
the  hiq;hcr  development  of 
man's  nature. 

{a)  Reference  to  the  Divine  Voli- 
tion of  this  relation  in  its  higher 
aspects.  ^^'  ^^ 

{b)  The  insufficiency  of  the  animal 
creation  for  this  purpose  demon- 
strated. "•  ^9-21 

(r)  The  Divine  protection  of  wom- 
an, alike  in  her  origin  and  in  the 
charter  of  her  mission.  n.  21-25 

{d)  The   absence  of   any  polluting 

element  in  this  relation.  11.25 

'Ji')  The  development  of  the  higher 
life  of  man  in  its  essential  princi- 
ples, as  it  has  actually  come  to 
be.  "^-  ^-^^-  2^ 

(i)  The  Profanation  of  the  first 
Paradise. 
{a)  The  entrance  of    Evil   through 

the  Creation.  "^-  ^ 

{b)  The  temptation  and  fall  of  the 
woman. 


(r)  The   temptation  and  fall  of  the 


man. 


III.   2-6^ 

ui.  6i> 


(2)  The  essential  consequences 
of  this  profanation. 

{a)  Man's    ineffectual     attempt    to 
cover  his  sin  from  God.  n^  7»  8 


2  28  A  P  PEN  DICE  S. 

{b)  The    subterfuge    defeated    and 

the  sin  unveiled.  iii,  9-14 

{c)  The  judgment  on  the  source  of 
temptations,  with  the  sentence  of 
its  final  overthrow  by  the  seed  of 
the  woman.  iii.  14-16 

{d)  The  judgment  on  the  woman, 
in  which  the  tie  to  her  husband 
which  she  has  profaned  becomes 
the  source  of  her  punishment  and 
the  channel  of  her  discipline.  iii.  16 

[e)  The  judgment  on  the  man  in 
which  the  tie  to  Nature  which  he 
has  profaned  becomes  the  source 
of  his  punishment  and  the  channel 
of  his  discipline.  iii.  17-20 

(/")  The  Divine  cleansing  and  cov- 
ering of  sin  foreshadowed.  iii,  20-22 

(^)  The  withdrawal  of  the  privi- 
leges of  the  profaned  sanctuary.         iii.  22-25 

(3)  The  radical  schism  thus  in- 
troduced into  human  devel- 
opment between  nature  and 
grace,  between  the  natural  and 
the  spiritual  man. 


((2)  The  enmity  between  the  child 
of  fallen  nature  and  the  child  of 


IV.  1-9 


[b)  The  judgment  upon  Cain;  the 
tie  of  brotherhood  which  he  has 
profaned,  the  source  of  his  punish- 
ment and  the  channel  of  his  disci- 
pline. IV.  9-16 


APPENDICES.  229 

{c)  The  development  of  man  in 
civilisation  and  arts,  coupled  with 
growing;  religious  and  moral  deg- 
radation. IV.  16-25 

{d)  The  religious  development  of 
man  under  these  unfavorable  con- 
ditions. IV.  25,  26 

///.      THE  GENERATIONS  OF  ADAM.  v.    i-VI.  9 

(O  Recapitulation;  contrastincr 
the  fulness  of  the  creative  gifts 
conferred  upon  man  by  God, 
with  the  imperfect  transmis- 
sion of  those  gifts  under  the 
changed  condition  of  things.  v.  1-3 

(2)  The  first  Election — the  line 
of  Seth  continued  to  Noah  and 

his  sons.  v.  3-32 

(3)  The  ultimate  triumph  of 
moral  Evil  therein,  and  the 
obliteration  of  all  barriers  to  its 
advance.  vi.  1-9 

IV.    THE  GENERA  TIONS  OF  NOAH.  VI.   9-IX.  29 

(i)  Recapitulation  concerning 
Noah,  his  sons,  and  the  moral 
condition  of  mankind.  vi.  9-13 

(2)  The  judgment  upon  the  Old 
World   and  the   provision    for 

Noah.  VI.  13-22 

(3)  The  final  injunctions  after  the 

ark  was  completed.  vii.  1-6 


230  APPENDICES. 

(4)  The  sentence  carried  out, 
and  the  protection  of  Noah  as 
the  subject  of  the  saving  pur- 
poses of  God.  VII.  6-viii.  15 

(5)  The  new  sphere  of  man's 
development  and  the  accept- 
ance of  the  worship  of  the  new 
election.  vm.  15-22 

(6)  The  charter  of  the  relations 
between  man,    the  world,  and 

God  restored  and  reaffirmed,      ix.  1-18 

(7)  The  fall  of  Noah  and  the 
Divine  oracle  in  regard  to  the 
differing  destinies  of  the  three 

great  families  of  mankind.  ix.  18-29 

The  "generations  of  the  sons  of  Noah," 
which  follow  from  Chapter  x.  to  xi.  10  (con- 
taining the  "table  of  the  Nations"),  form  the 
connectinor  link  between  this  "ProloQ^ue"  to 
all  subsequent  Revelation  and  the  Patriarchal 
History. 


RECENT   PUBLICATIONS. 


SOME    LIGHTS    OF    SCIENCE    ON    THE    FAITH  :    Being 

the   Bampton   Lectures  for  1892. 
By  the  Ri.  Rev.  Alkrf.d  Barry,  D.D.,  Canon  of  Windsor,  formerly 

Bishop    of    Sydney,   Metropolitan    of    New    South  Wales,  and 

Primate  of  Australia.  8vo,  S3. 00. 
"  His  iliscussion  011  llie  ilisliiiclioii  between  revelation  and  inspiration  is  notli- 
inK  less  tliaii  masterly  ;  and  in  every  part  of  the  work  there  is  a  spirit  of  breadth  and 
freedom  which  belongs  oidy  to  a  man  who  stands  firmly  on  the  broad  foundation 
of  the  Catholic  I-'aith.as  distiiiKuishcd  from  the  transitory  platform  of  Individual 
opinion."— 7V/<'  Cliiiuli  Slaiuiaid,  I'hiladelphia. 

THE  PRIMITIVE  SAINTS  AND  THE  SEE  OF  ROME. 
By  F.  W.  Puller,  M.A.,  Mission  Priest  of  the  Society  of  St.  John 
the  Evangelist,  Cowley,  Oxford.  Crown  Svo,  $2. 25. 
"  The  author  accomplishes  his  purpose  most  eflectively,  writing  with  a  clear- 
ness and  pungencv  which  are  heightencti  by  his  careful  moderation  and  Christian 
friendliness  of  temper.  Facts  that  most  of  us  cither  did  not  know  at  all,  or  knew 
oidy  in  a  hazy  disperscdness,  he  brings  together  into  a  most  convincing  focus. 
.  .  .  We  know  nothing  better  than  this  modest  work  to  explain  the  extreme 
resentment  of  I'ltra-monlanism  at  all  attempts  of  Catholics  to  ascertain  whai  history 
says  about  the  papal  claims." — Andover  Review. 

GOD'S    CITY  :  Four   Addresses  delivered  at    St.  Asaph  on  the 
Spiritual    and    Ethical  Value  of   Belief  in  the  Church.       To 
which  are  added  six  sermons  on  kindred  subjects. 
By  the  Rev.  H.  S.   Holland,   M.A.,   Canon  and   Precentor  of  St. 
Paul's.     Crown  Svo,  $2.00. 
"  As  to  their  teaching,  we  think  them  to  be  admirable  models  of  ''   .  spirit  in 
which  instruction  concerning  the  Church  should  be  given." 

—  Churchman,  New  ^■ork. 
"We  sometimes  wonder  why  some  sermons  find    their  way  into   print;  but 
sermons  such  as  these  are  in  the  character  of  an  inspiration  tiiat  not  onlv  find 
their  way  into  print,  but  into  the  hearts  and  lives  of  all  who  bear  or  read  tliem." 

— Livini;  Chuich,  Chicago. 

SERMONS  ON  SOME  WORDS  OF  CHRIST. 

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CLERICAL    LIFE    AND    WORK.     A  Collection    of   Sermons 

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THE    CHRISTIAN    HOME  :    Its  Foundation  and  Duties. 
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THE  PROPHET  ISAIAH. 
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A    HISTORY   OF    THE    PAPACY  DURING   THE  PERIOD 
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SPECULUM    SACERDOTUM;   or,  the    Divine    Model  of  the 

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THE  INSPIRED  WORD.     Eight  Lectures  on  the  Early  His- 
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